Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck
by James Firecat
Summary: Cats are behaving strangely in Nova Vassa. The last time such a thing happened it heralded the arrival of an evil known as the signature killer. This time, it might mean something even worse!
1. Chapter 1

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck...

Chapter one: If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood...

"Another day, another ten coppers..." Reflected Nicolai Androv.

All things considered the Nova Vassan merchant was quite content with his life and had every reason to be.

He had followed the Lawgiver's tenants his entire life and he had been rewarded with inheriting his father's antique shop and continued reliable business for it. His wealth was by no means grand, but neither did he need to fall into crime and depravity to avoid starvation.

He took a moment to caress his black mustache as he examined his latest purchases. They had arrived last night near closing time so he hadn't been able to properly inspect them until now.

Four finely crafted coffins imported from the forests of Barovia, nothing too spectacular but they should last far longer and prove much studier than those made of local wood.

Not antiques in and of themselves, but his shop did all kinds of business and he was certain he'd be able to find a buyer for them sooner or later. If worse came to worse he could always have them broken apart and remade into desks, chairs, or something else, strong stout wood would always fetch a reasonable price in Nova Vassa.

As he carefully felt out each coffin by hand a strange realization came upon Nicolai, he had paid for four coffins, four coffins had been unloaded last night... so why where there five coffins inside his shop?

The door had been locked up tight and showed no signs of tampering, besides who would break into his store to leave behind a coffin? Surely there were simpler more effective ways of disposing of a dead body?

Besides, this fifth coffin... what a coffin it was!

He ran his hands along it and felt the smooth material it had been draped in making it practically a joy to the touch. He pulled back some of the stuff and saw to his surprise that the wood beneath was black as the material covering it.

Yet a couple quick wraps on its side proved that it was neither rotted nor burnt, but stern and strong.

No sane criminal (or even an insane one) would leave behind a coffin like this, it looked grand enough that even Prince Othmar could not have objected to it being his final resting place!

As that thought struck him Nicolai began to rub his hands together, the ways of the Lawgiver were not his to question, but surely this coffin must be a minor sign of his favor! Only a gem encrusted silver spear could have been a more obvious gift from on high!

If only he could find the right buyer he was certain this coffin would be worth several month's regular business!

The only problem with possibly interesting the Prince (well the only problem other than the fact that he was still several decades away from needing a coffin) in it would be the slogan embossed upon, even if it had been done in beautiful golden thread.

"Touch Not The Cat Without a Glove."

That was all well and good but the Prince would want his own family motto "Unity from us, power for us" put in its place.

Still that phrase it.. it reminded the merchant of something that he had seen somewhere, he just wasn't sure where.

He scooped up his book of records and began to search through it hoping that he could find an answer, lest curiosity distract him for who knew how long? He ended up needing to go back through several of his family's record books (keeping careful track of everything one owns and sells was a minor way of showing deference to the Lawgiver after all) till he finally found it.

So pleased was he with his discovery that he couldn't keep himself from announcing it to the otherwise vacant shop.

"Aha, here we are, 'Touch Not The Cat Without a Glove' it showed up on a moth bitten tapestry believed to date back to a time roughly around...!" Nicolai's eyes bulged in their sockets and he dropped the book.

Forget selling the coffin to the Prince as a resting place, he'd just had a fantastic antique from the Bridling period dropped into his lap!

The coffin must have some sort of magical spell on it to be this well preserved! What other explanation could there be for why a coffin should have written in Nova Vassan a slogan that hadn't actually been used in his country for over a century?

He reached for a crowbar, realizing that if he'd been able to lay a hand on the coffin, it must not have any magical protections that would flay the skin from his bones if he tried to open it.

Who knew what greater wonders might lay inside?

As he turned around, the strange coffin suddenly swung open of its own accord.

A beautiful woman dressed in a manner both shockingly foreign and shockingly masculine rose from the coffin. Her clothing amounted to little more than a simple white jacket with white shirt underneath and a black pair of pants, while a white hat rested upon her black hair that was parted by a streak of white in the middle.

The woman's outfit was a study in contradiction for the masculine way it clung to her body ended up leaving her feminine figure far more fully on display and she wore the simple outfit with grace and elegance that would have befitted a noblewoman in a resplendent scarf and blouse.

She stretched and cricked her neck slightly as she looked around the shop her ruby red eyes paying him no more attention than they did any of his wears.

"Hmm... this doesn't look like were I remember going to sleep. Still, you don't especially look like the kidnapping type." She certainly had mastered the highborn skill of having a conversation "about you" without needing to have a conversation "with you" if nothing else.

"Did you remember going to sleep in a coffin in the first place?" Nicolai ventured hoping against hope that he might retain ownership of the strange antique.

"Oh that part I remember quite clearly. Still, I don't think we're in Kartakass anymore Kitten." The woman reflected to no one in particular.

"You've got that right Mirri!" Answered a young man who emerged from the coffin a few moments later.

Nicolai turned his head to the side slightly, trying to a better look at the black coffin.

It was large yes, easily larger than the four he had actually bought, still unless it possessed additional magic that made it larger on the inside, it was hard to imagine that two people could have comfortably fit inside it.

The coffin's second occupant proved even stranger upon the eyes than its first one had. He was a young man with soulful brown eyes. Still, he was not so young that his lip should have been without at least some faint traces of a mustache starting to come in.

Nicolai couldn't help but conclude that the man must be at least as foreign as the woman's method of dress due to his lack of the traditional Nova Vassan well groomed facial hair.

Leaving aside his lack of a mustache he was dressed in a riotous bright red jacket, shirt, pants, shoes, and wide brimmed hat that came close to completely covering his head. If he squinted hard Nicolai could just barely catch a glimpse of how the hair underneath that hat seemed to be equally red.

"No of course not, you are in finest antique shop of all of Kantora!" Nicolai exclaimed, instinct rising to the occasion where actual coherent understanding had long since fled.

"Kantora, you mean I'm back in... well this is just wonderful. At least I still have my coffin..." The woman muttered to herself in irritation.

Her Vassi was without trace of foreign accent but hinted at its owner being of the upper-crust. By comparison her companion's came with a Mordentish accent (if you were going to have business dealings with traders who traveled any further west than Barovia you ended having at least some exposure to that language) and was of a much more baseborn nature.

Clues began to accumulate and Nicolai now had a theory he would carefully keep to himself.

The woman came from a family of some means and had committed Viggo's Folly or something close enough to it by becoming smitten with a foreign commoner, perhaps some son of a merchant who passed through these realms.

They might have eloped in the night carrying off the coffin either to sell it or as a memento her of family's past wealth. Granted it still did nothing at all to answer the much stranger question of why they had been sleeping inside the thing.

The pair looked far too healthy (and their clothing if bizarrely designed was mostly clean and without noticeable tear) and vibrant for them to have been so lacking in funds that a coffin was the only shelter they could seek at night!

Nicolai was tempted to insist that the mysterious coffin in question was rightfully his, then decided against it.

It was hardly as if he had paid for the coffin, and perhaps it was not a gift from the Lawgiver but a test? This beautiful woman clearly thought it was her own, what right did he have to take it from her?

Then the other coffins he had just bought opened up and more figure emerged from them, two men and two women.

One of the men had long silver hair, and a single green left eye while his right was covered by an eyepatch.

He was wearing a black outfit of some vaguely martial nature with silver symbols of a mystic nature inscribed upon it.

The other man had dirty blond hair and blue eyes and was dressed in a simple brown cloak with a blue shirt on underneath.

Of the women, one of them was an elf with blue hair and blue eyes in a close cut blue dress. The other was even stranger, she had green tinted skin, yellow hair that seemed to be strangely straw-like, and was dressed in a green leotard of some sort. She must have been either foreign or cursed (or both) for Nicolai had never seen someone whose very skin seemed to call out in morning.

"Boss, I don't recall going to bed in a coffin, let alone a coffin in the middle of some guy's store..." Reflected the dirty blond haired man.

Nicolai blinked a few times, he hadn't inspected the coffins, but he was fairly certain he would have noticed if people had been inside them when they were delivered...

"I don't suppose you're going to claim you own those coffins as well?" He muttered dourly wondering if whatever strange business was going on at the moment would result in not just the black coffin but even the one's he had rightful purchased being taken from him.

The silver haired man looked back at the coffin he had just emerged from and shook his head.

"Never seen it before in my life. Given that I could say the same about you perhaps some introductions are in order? I'm Alexander Diamondclaw..." He offered.

At that point it would been most impolite for the store's owner not to respond in kind.

"Nicolai Androv. As I was explaining to your female companion, at least supposing you people already know one another, I own the finest antique shop in Kantora. Do you see anything you like?" He abruptly added as an after thought.

Further introductions were made, the man in red was James Firecat, the one in brown was Cal Wright, the elf was Devi Skye, the woman with green skin was Florence Bastien and the beautiful woman in white and black was Mirri Catwarrior.

Nicolai fully expected that all of them including (make that ESPECIALLY) Mirri would not be looked kindly upon by the Lawgiver or his priests, but as a merchant he'd long ago accustomed himself to dealing with those who were destined to spend their afterlives in the Hell of Slaves.

To their credit his unexpected guests didn't take their frustration at having been hurled halfway across the Core out on any of his delicate merchandise. Even more wonderfully they'd been lucky enough not to have been separated from their collective money pouch by whatever mystic misfortune they had suffered.

Alas, none of Nicolai's stock interested them at all.

Knowing that foreigners (and these people were about as foreign as you could get) could be counted on to purchase what no normal Nova Vassan would, the merchant didn't want to loose the unique chance they represented so he decided to display one final item for them.

"I wouldn't go showing this off to my normal customers you understand. It's antique I've no doubt of that, but all the same some members of the Iron Faith might make regrettable mistakes concerning my devotion to the Lawgiver if I left it out in the open for anyone to see..." Nicolai explained as he searched for the strange curio he had decided to purchase two days ago.

It had gone for a song because of its blasphemous nature but it had been so well made that he hadn't been able to refuse the offer.

It was another coffin of sorts. An ornately carved wooden container perhaps two feet in length, designed in the shape of a cat.

Many tiny gems were studded in the coffin while the cat's face seemed to have been gilded with gold. If Nicolai was unable to find a buyer for the object before much longer he planned to start prying the gems loose.

For now it was unmarred and in almost shockingly pristine condition.

"To be perfectly honest, I have no idea exactly how old this item is. It clearly dates back to before the reign of Saint Gorkyn Beloved of the Lawgiver, but perhaps it goes even back beyond the arrival of the Old Vassi?

I can not say for sure, only that it has been quite some time since anyone has worshiped cats in Nova Vassa to the point that they would bury one in such a resplendent fashion. It can be yours for a mere, ten platinum say?" Nicolai offered as he held up the item in question for the other occupants of his shop to get a good long look at.

The price he asked was certainly twice what the gems in the coffin were worth, and he had no intentions of mentioning how he'd bought it for only fifty gold. To his delight he saw James Firecat start to search through the many pockets of his outfit, and then to his horror he felt the coffin in his hands move.

So great was his surprise that he dropped the exquisitely carved coffin and could do nothing but curse himself for a fumble fingered fool as it plummeted to the floor. It struck the ground and snapped open, a small brownish feline figure popping out.

It looked vaguely cat shaped, but more like someone had baked a cat out of clay rather than a living animal. Yet it was animate enough to open its mouth and let loose with an ominous hiss and shake itself vigorously. Flecks of dust and who knew what else fell from its body as raggedy tufts of fur emerged from gaps in the clay coating that surrounded its body.

It turned a baleful glance in Nicolai's direction and he discovered that its eye sockets were little more than withered husks. Its teeth were discolored and broken, but in such a way to only make them more fearsome.

The shopkeeper didn't think, he acted on pure reflex and kicked out at the creature trying to knock it away from him. It jumped over his leg showing shocking dexterity despite it's decrepit appearance.

Its claws flashed out and Nicolai screamed in pain as there was a sudden searing sensation from his leg. His entire body felt weak and he collapsed to the ground.

"HELP ME!" He pleaded to the other occupants of the shop, worried that this bizarre beast might prove more than capable of killing even a fully grown man.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a metallic flail that had been wrapped around the elf's right arm unfolded and lashed across the room. It wrapped itself about the neck off the catbeast and with a firm pull she managed to yank it away from the prone merchant.

The feline terror hissed and spluttered in anger, its claws striking out at anything within reach, but they were not sharp or strong enough to damage the flail that held it in place. Only after failing several times over did it occur to the creature to turn its ire on the one who had bound it, spinning around to hiss at the elf.

It bounded towards her, only to have its head caved in by a blow from the back of Cal Wright's weapon, some manner of firearm Nicolai believed, such things were too expensive for him to be very familiar with them.

Either way the clay coated body jerked and spluttered a few more times then went blessedly still. Nicolai breathed a sigh of relief, which came far too soon as he suddenly found the blade of a longsword being held to his throat.

Alexander Diamondclaw stood above him weapon in hand, his grip far from traditional, but perfectly capable of ending the life of a shop keeper should he so wish it.

"I have no intention of hurting you, but I want you to understand just how seriously I am taking this matter. So lets both be reasonable people, I am going to put this sword back in its sheath, and you are going to tell me the truth. Did you know that thing was in there?" He demanded in a very vexed voice.

"No, of course I didn't!" Nicolai gasped, amazed that sure enough Alexander did return his sword to its sheath.

"I wouldn't ever sell something that I knew was dangerous to a customer! You can ask around this entire city, people will speak for how I have always been fair and honest in my dealings!" He explained.

"Where did that thing come from, and is there anything else you know about it you haven't told us?" Alexander 'requested' from him.

"It came from the quarry in the Koshka Bluffs... if I had to guess I'd say it was supposed to be some sort of holy relic of..." Nicolai concluded the sentence in a whisper so soft that no one else in the room was able to hear it.

"Say that last part again..." Alexander prompted him.

Beads of sweat began to roll down the shopkeeper's face.

"Look... I only know this name because it is part of our history, from a very long time ago... I don't worship it, venerate it, or respect it in any way! It's just a name, and it existed and in the dark past, the days before the coming of Saint Gorkyn Beloved of the Lawgiver, it is a name that shows up with some frequency among the name of false cults.

So, at the moment, I suspect that the coffin might have been some sort of heathen fetish made to honor the 'cat goddess' Bubahkaa who is nothing but a lie, she does not exist and never existed..." He finally admitted.

"You mean Bubastis, or possibly Bastet? The difference in language can play havoc with the names of divine beings which tend to be pretty fancy to start with. Was she depicted as a female goddess with the head of a housecat? Known for being quite even tempered as far as goddesses go, has a sister called Sekhmet, a woman with the head of a lioness and tends to be a lot meaner?" Suggested James Firecat eagerly."

Nicolai looked around the room, there were on six people in it, none of them who made their homes in Nova Vassa, and one of them had a put a blade to his throat a few moments ago.

"I couldn't possibly say anything about a deity that might or might not be known as Sehkmaa, I do not know what gender that god is, I do not know who might worship him, her or it, and I do not know in what manner they might dress, or what weapons they might consider holy, I KNOW NOTHING about Sehkmaa! Nobody worships that mysterious being anymore, just as I have never heard of anyone who worships Bubahkaa!" He protested with incredible vehemence.

Alexander saw that whatever the man might or might not know, he was already starting to fear for his life.

"Well then, I think that's all we need to know. Sorry for the unpleasantness, I don't like it when I wind up being attacked by monsters before breakfast." He apologized.

Someone else wasn't in the mood to apologize though, there was a loud "AHEM!" from behind Alexander.

James Firecat stepped forward, and began to rifle through the many pockets of his outfit. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a small figure of a cat seated upright on all fours carved out of dark stone and ran a gloved finger along it comfortingly.

"I'll have you know that me and my maternal family have been Bastet worshipers of the Purrbaterian sect in good standing for generation upon generation! That's a lot like the Meowthedist branch of the faith except unlike them we know our Lady's Prayer should include the line 'forgive us our debts as we we forgive our debtors', while those those blind fools insist it should be 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespasses against us' can you believe there are still people thick headed enough to think that way?" All present (even Mirri, even Alexander) suddenly found themselves overcome with a great desire to sneeze, that or for some other reason decided to bury their faces in the crooks of their elbows.

"Hey this is an important distinction!" James protested.

"The phrase 'trespasses' refers to committing actions that are against one's moral code, while 'debts' has far more wide reaching consequences, it pertains to matters material and secular rather than just moral. There have been centuries worth of disagreement over this issue!" There were noises that sounded decidedly like sniggering coming from most the rooms occupants now.

"Well also there was some stuff about how while we believe that the holy texts were divinely inspired, this divine inspiration only involves the original texts which nobody bothers to, or even possibly could read any more, and while there is still the gift of Bastet's divine mercy and wisdom within the translations it can also be as flawed as anything else produced by mortal hands, while they insist that any translation is just as perfect as the original, which is silly if you ask me because how can so many different translations all be perfectly correct?

That said, I will give them something in that they believe that the act of mouse catching is pleasing to Bastet and success at is a sign she favors you. On the other hand 'we' 'believe' that mouse catching alone done without actual faith in one's heart is not looked kindly upon by Bastet.

You can fill a litter box with that point of view in my opinion as I think that the Mewothedists were probably right on that one, some things Bastet likes to see done just because honestly they just need to be done, which was why in my free time I've always been contemplating how best to combine the two separated branches though I'm not sure what I wold call it." By this point laughter filled the room from all directions and in the face of it James cold not maintain his righteous fury, his fully erect stance giving way to a slight crouch as he continued to stroke the statue.

"So as you could probably guess, I'm not surprised that Bastet worship isn't exactly a major religion, we're just a little, maybe a touch more than a little, prone to schism. I think my mom once told me that every layman would come to worship service with a high priestess's mask in their pack. Assuming they would come to worship service at all, since getting the congregation together for anything tended to be like herding cats." He admitted.

End Chapter

AN: To start with something very simple, in Nova Vassa "green" is a color that is associated with death and morning the way that black is in America and many other many western cultures, or white is in some eastern ones like China. So Florence's skin tone stands out even more than it would in most places.

Onto more complicated matters, Nicolai has very good reasons to feel awkward talking about Bubahkaa/Bastet, Nova Vassa is not quite a theocracy, but like many real life autocracies of one form or another the church is definitely joined at the hip (or at least at the shoulder) with the state. The Iron Faith of the Lawgiver is the only acceptable religion to practice, and while it's not on the books illegal to be an atheist, you are going to get publicly ostracized (expect the same thing to happen if you don't show up at worship services often enough also) at the very least.

You obviously can't worship another god if you don't know their name so acting as if you don't know the names of any other gods is typically a good safe bet. You especially don't want to act like you know the names of gods who aren't from foreign parts but instead were once worshiped by quite a lot of people in Nova Vassa's past, you know those religions that the Iron Faith of the Lawgiver had to stamp out to become the sole practiced faith in Nova Vassa.

Granted, things only get worse once you bring up the subject of Bastet's sister.

There was a group in Nova Vassa roughly a little more than sixty years before this story takes place who called themselves the Claws of Sehkmaa. They somehow managed to avoid getting stamped out by the Iron Faith of the Lawgiver, most likely through dint of paying some hilariously large bribes to the head of the church, who if you haven't already guessed also happens to be the Prince (acting ruler) of Nova Vassa.

They did the same things most religions talk about it being important to do, they fed the hungry, took in orphans, spread the word of their god to make converts, tried to make Nova Vassa a better place to live.

They were also a front for one of the most ambitious organized crime rings in Nova Vassan history (which is saying something given Nova Vassan history) lead by some guy you may have heard of already, his name was Malken.

So everything Nicolai "doesn't say" about Sehkmaa, that's the equivalent of "I've never heard of an organization called 'The Mafia' and if it existed, I wouldn't know any of its members, what they do, where they meet, or what their goal is, anyone who is listening please don't kill me!"

The various branches of Bastet worship that James mentions are in no way... (sound of muffled laughter) yeah even I couldn't bring myself to honestly type that. Yes I'm making fun of just how many different branches of Christianity there are, which is okay because I myself was raised Presbyterian.

The differences that James points out between that group and Methodists are accurate differences as far as I can tell, the less obvious one about mouse catching is pointing out that the the Methodist church has a "deeds not creeds" approach while the Presbyterians have something closer to the Calvinist (which is the church they (Presbyterians) broke off from) belief in a "selected elect" though we're (Presbyterians, or at least the branch of the faith I grew up in) quick to point out that the "selected elect" in question in EVERYBODY, but they were selected and are going to heaven because god loves all of us, not because any of us were able to do such good things in our lives that we actually deserved to go to heaven.

If that confuses you just think of it as the flip of another old saw I am fond of, that saying being "no finite life of sin is just cause for infinite punishment" (which is why I (warning this is me stating my own religious beliefs at this point) don't believe in a permanent hell that people get sent to but never get to leave in a million billion google etc years ) in this case the Presbyterian belief could be stated as "no life of finite good deeds is just cause for infinite rewards".

I'm sorry that this has gotten so complicated religion wise, but short of G'Henna which is an actual theocracy, I don't think there's a domain in Ravenloft where the church interacts with the state as much as it does in Nova Vassa, so you can't really write something that takes place there and be true to the setting without getting into this kind of stuff.

On a funnier note the line that of James' mother passed down to him is the church hierarchy equivalent of that saying about how in Napoleon's army, every soldier carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack.


	2. Chapter 2

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Two: So glad I got the f**k out of our hometown

"So what can you tell us about Nova Vassa Mirri?" Alexander Diamondclaw inquired as the group departed from the antique store and stepped out into the streets of Kantora.

"What exactly do you want to hear? I got out of this place a long time ago..." Mirri replied being careful not to say exactly how long, less someone overhear her and decide to start paying particularly close attention to the group.

"I'm still not sad about shaking its dust from my feet either. I stopped being into ponies a long time ago, and that's all this place really has going for it, horses, horses, and more horses.

All the best horses in the world come from Nova Vassa and we make sure to only sell geldings to foreigners to stay in unquestioned control of the supply. If anyone ever found a way to smuggle even a single Nova Vassan stallion into Barovia they'd go down in the history books as being the Strahd Von Zarovich of crime." She reflected.

After about five seconds she spun around, her red eyes wide and pleading.

"You know Sir, a thought occurs..." She began.

"No Mirri." Alexander instantly declared.

"We wouldn't even have to start breaking laws till we got to the border you know. I can put on the right sort of airs since I doubt looking down your nose at the Vistani who often actually raise the horses will go out of fashion before the Lawgiver hands out his Final Judgment! We tell them I'm a representative of some noble family or other..." She continued.

"No Mirri." Alexander repeated.

"To pay for it we're going to need to acquire a lot of local coinage, no wait maybe we don't! We make it seem like we're buying the horse to use as a ringer in some big important sporting event which is why we want to do it legally but without a lot of fanfare or direct traces to what noble family I'm a member of." She suggested.

"No Mirri." Alexander reiterated.

"Once we have the horse, that's when the fun really starts... I think we should probably repaint its coat a different color just to be on the safe side, Cal can help with that. Still, to actively get it out of Nova Vassa we'll need something like a minor goblin incursion out of Tepest to scare off the boarder guards..." The black haired woman continued to plot.

"Mirri, we're not doing it and that's final. There are more important things in this world than grand theft equine.

Besides, even if you could carry off this particular scheme, how do you plan to prove you did it once the horse is accord the boarder? Have some artist paint a picture of you riding it and attach a note saying 'this is a real pure blood Nova Vassan stallion that I have stolen' and hope that they're willing to take an admitted criminal at their word?" Alexander pointed out.

Mirri pouted heavily went back to walking down the street.

"Ugh, you're no fun any more.

Why do you have to be so reasonable and logical about everything? The worst part is you're probably right, I bet somebody already has pulled it off but it's kept hush hush so that nobody has to admit to being at fault.

Anyway, aside from the horses, the only thing that Nova Vassa has plenty of is jerks. Jerks, jerks, jerks, jerks jerks, and that's putting it mildly.

The rich people are all pompous assholes who are intent on squeezing the peasants for every single copper they can.

Meanwhile, the poor people are all thieves and brigands of one sort or another who are intent on swindling as many of their fellows as possible in the vain hope that some day they can become a pompous rich asshole!

All of it dressed up in nice words about duty, honor and devotion, with the priests chanting about how it's only natural for the rich to be wealthy because they were born with the favor of the Lawgiver.

There are all sorts of fancy mounted games, but if you ask me. the national sport should be spraying perfume on horseshit.

There's nothing good about this place, nobody is going to deal anything close to fairly with us, and if we're smart the sooner we make plans to leave the better. I don't know why the Mists thought to bring us here, but if anything important has changed I certainly can't see it!" Mirri spat bitterly.

"Well there was that undead cat and the coffin that supposedly came from the Kantora Bluffs..." Devi pointed out evenly.

Mirri waved such concerns away dispassionately.

"One undead cat so mangy not even flees would touch it barely counts in the grand scheme of things Elf Lass." The black haired woman insisted.

"Oh lets go see the market!" Suggested James Firecat eagerly pointing in the direction a great deal of noise and scents were coming from.

Mirri hung her head and huffed in irritation.

"Sure, why don't we go spend our time having various people try to hawk us overpriced low quality crud that's they probably stole from someone else so recently the original owner is still looking for it! Shopping in Nova Vassa, it's not just our prices that are a steal!" She noted sarcastically.

Florence placed a calming hand on Mirri's shoulder to keep her from continuing her tirade even further.

"We went to bed in an inn, and we woke up in coffins. The Mists want us to be in Nova Vassa... do you really believe that you can outrun the Mists? It'd be as foolish as trying to outrun Gaia upon whose soil we eternally stand." She pointed out.

Mirri contemplated her words for a moment and then her shoulder's slumped.

"I don't always stand on the ground... however I will admit that if the Mists feel like taking us here all the way from Kartakass, they could probably do the same from Barovia or Tepest.

Fine, lets go see what cat needs to be rescued from what tree, and what villain needs to be taught a stern lesson about how evil never prospers before we're allowed to leave. James lead on, you have a never ceasing talent for finding people who are down on their luck and in need of help." Mirri suggested in a deadpan monotone.

XXX XXX XXX

Despite the fact that Kantora was the capital of Nova Vassa the particular market that James had suggested they walk through seemed to cater mostly to the lower class. Thus while there was a great deal for sale, none of it didn't have a much better quality version being sold elsewhere at reasonably higher prices.

Alexander only needed to take one good look at most of the "meat" products being sold to figure out that he wasn't quite that hungry, not yet at least.

Still, after half an hour or so of mostly aimless wandering one stall in particular ended up drawing the group's interest, even if it wasn't because of what they were selling.

"Look, I'll get what I owe you, I promise. I just need a few days..." A gaunt woman whimpered.

She was talking to two men, both of them had black hair and blue eyes, one of them was dressed in ring mail armor and holding a club while the other was dressed in unremarkable robes and held a cloth bag in both hands.

"Mirri... is this that bit you mentioned before, the poor victimizing each other?" James asked, suspecting that what was taking place surely had to be some manner of illegal.

Mirri however just sniffed in disapproval and shook her head.

"I guess one thing has changed, now there seem to be all these middle class assholes, who if I don't miss my guess probably enjoy lording over their lessers even more than the rich assholes do since it's the only way they can forget how much the upper class lord over them directly." Mirri theorized.

James just blinked a few times in confusion having trouble following her.

"The fat one is a tax collector, and the other one a soldier in the service of the Bolshnik family, I can tell by the symbol of a snake curling around an axe on his hat. The woman probably made the mistake of thinking that food was more important than keeping certain palm's greased." She explained.

A moment later the tax man motioned towards his companion, who leaned heavily on one shelf of the woman's stall.

There was a harsh cracking noise and some of her goods were sent rolling haphazardly into the street.

"Oops." The militiaman declared in a voice so devoid of regret that even James could tell his actions had been intentional.

"That bully! Taxes are supposed to be about building new roads and making sure that Falkovnia doesn't invade, not making people suffer!" James huffed in irritation.

There was a pathetic mewling sound as a cat with visible ribs emerged from somewhere. It rubbed itself against the woman's legs for a few moments before turning to try and do the same to the two men.

The militiaman pulled back his right leg clearly intending to punt the poor animal as far as he possibly could, but before his kick got a chance to connect the beleaguered stall owner picked up the cat and began to stroke it nervously.

"Are you done?" She begged them, clearly worried that the two would inflict still more damage to her meager belongings before they left.

"That must be the reason you can't pay, you're wasting your money feeding that cat. Why it's fatter than you are! But we'll soon fixed that..." The tax collector promised before motioning towards his more martial companion again.

The militiaman reached for the cat's neck, and in response it hissed and struck out with its claws before jumping from the woman's arms and vanishing into the crowd among a sea of human legs.

"He, he scratched me!" The man complained holding out his hand.

Sure enough, his leather glove had been torn clean through and there were four gashes in his hand, gashes that looked like they had been delivered by something much more vicious (and much larger) than an everyday alley cat.

"It serves you right." James stated with complete and utter certainty.

"That cat never tried to hurt you, and you were going to strangle it for fun! More to the point, how do you expect this poor woman to ever pay her the taxes she owes you if you keep breaking her property?" He added warming to the topic.

"Oh great fuzz face is going to get us into..." Cal began but he got no further before Mirri elbowed him in the stomach.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! Lower class people NEVER openly mouth off to their betters in Nova Vassa... this is gonna be great!" Mirri predicted with an almost unseemly degree of delight in her voice.

"Who in the name of the Sacred Spear are you?" The militiaman demanded.

"Yes, I want to make sure that YOUR taxes are payed up!" The bureaucrat added with obvious predatory relish.

"My name is James Fir-ey-cah and I don't see how I could possibly owe you people any taxes since I'm not from around here and I only just arrived in Nova Vassa less than an hour ago." Announced James Firecat proudly, allowing his Lower Mordentish accent to play heavily upon the pronunciation of his last name, giving it a full three syllables instead of the two that it would have in Balok or Vassi.

"How did you only just arrive in Nova Vassa an hour ago and already reach Kantora?" The bean counter prompted, suspecting that something must be amiss somewhere.

"Well it's pretty simple really, I went to bed in Kartakass, and I woke up in an antique shop in Kantora." James told them point blank.

This explanation won him a pair of very disbelieving looks.

"The shop's owner, Nicolai Androv can vouch for the truth of that particular matter, he saw all six of us get out of coffins in his store." Alexander added not wanting to let James dig himself in too deep if possible.

"Hmm... I will be inquiring with him soon enough just to be on the safe side. As for the matter at hand though, if you are a foreigner you should not bother Nova Vassan officials attempting to carry out their sanctioned duties." The taxman declared while the militiaman gave James a soft prod with his club to drive the point home.

"How much doe she owe exactly?" I can probably cover it." James suggested.

Someone who knew Mirri well might expect her to be rather deflated by James taking this simple, open, honest, and reasonable approach to resolving the problem at hand.

Someone who knew Mirri VERY well and was also equally knowledgeable about the Iron Faith's dogma would understand why she was suddenly crossing her fingers, smiling cheekily and looking like she was just about to start jumping up and down with glee.

The militia member promptly rapped James with his club again, quite a bit harder this time.

"It is her foolishness which has squandered the money that she should have saved to pay the Prince's taxes with. The Lawgiver believes that people should be made to suffer for their failures." He growled angrily.

James paused for a moment, then reached down and picked up one of the meat stuffed cabbage rolls that the militiaman had knocked to the ground. He gingerly exhaled on it, blowing away a few specks of dirt and and rubbed it on his sleeve.

"I'm feeling hungry and given that a certain relic I was thinking about buying seemed to have some sort of horrific curse on it, I've got some cash burning a hole in my pocket. Here, keep the change." James declared before flipping the stall owner a platinum coin and taking a large bite out of his purchase.

No one in the history of the Core had probably paid more for less of a meal while looking as pleased with themselves about it as James Firecat did at that instant.

The woman gazed in shock at the platinum coin, it was of foreign make, but even the most ludicrous of exchange rates would still result in it being more money than she had likely ever held in her entire life.

The tax collector was likewise left in complete and utter stunned silence by the sight of the sparkling coin.

The militiaman however decidedly wasn't at a loss for words.

"Upstart!" He shouted while punching James in the face.

James Firecat winced as the blow struck home and spat out some of the half chewed food he'd been eating.

"Please don't hit me." He suggested evenly enough, not particularly worried about the fact that one of his eyes was starting to swell shut.

His piece said he took another bite, keeping his uninjured eye on the militiaman the entire time.

That meant he got a good long look as the fist came forward and struck him again.

James' head twisted slightly from the blow and this time when he spat things both blood red and bone white left his mouth.

From a few steps back it was just possible to hear Mirri's breathing suddenly become a great deal more energetic than normal.

"Oh Black Mother, I your humble supplicant thank you for the destruction I am about to witness..." She half prayed half panted.

James Firecat for his part took a single deep breath, his body still contorted at a rather awkward angle from the punch he had just taken.

Then he twisted around to face the militiaman again, moving with a celerity that shocked all but his companions. He turned every single ounce of that speed into additional momentum behind the blow he delivered.

James Firecat's lighting fast punch struck the unexpecting militiaman with such force that the armored man twisted about a full hundred and eighty degrees before collapsing to the ground.

James casually exhaled upon the his gloved left hand which had struck the blow and shrugged.

"I tried asking him politely." He stated with neither anger nor satisfaction.

Despite the fact that he'd been caught flat footed (and then some) by James' counter attack, the militiaman was far from unconscious.

He pushed himself up off the ground his entire face alight with an enraged snarl.

"I'm going to kill at least one alley cat before today is over!" He vowed.

As he spoke the militiaman's armor began to jangle ominously, his mustache growing larger and longer as hair becoming thicker everywhere his skin was visible.

"He's a lycanthrope also? I think the I'm gonna like second act of this production even better than the first!" Mirri gasped, savoring this unexpected turn of events.

James stared up into the face of a man who was now about only three quarters human, while the remainder of his morphology happened to be of a decidedly lupine nature, and did not flinch.

"You know... if you keep this up, you're going to wind up with something a lot worse than some minor cat scratches." James warned the werewolf.

By this point unsurprisingly lots of people were screaming.

One of them was the tax collector, who was trying to calm down the militiaman, desperately trying to keep the situation from getting still more out of hand.

"Not here you fool! Not in front of so many people! Besides, remember the reward!" He pleaded.

The werewolf didn't reverse his transformation, but he temporarily halted it.

"Reward?" He grumbled as if the bureaucrat was babbling nonsense.

"The Prince's Reward. He's been looking for some poisonous needles, and I think we may have just found them..." The tax collector insisted, torn between trying to make his advice private, and yet also loud enough to break through the haze of bloodlust which was no doubt starting to cloud his lycanthropic partner's mind.

The latter won out as both the werewolf and James (along with his companions) heard him.

The changes now did reverse themselves, luckily they hadn't gotten far enough along to seriously damage his clothing.

"Speak." The militiaman suggested, in exactly the same tone of voice one uses to command a dog.

The bureaucrat ignored the obvious insult and took a few steps forward.

"Look, I am not a man of violence by any stretch of the imagination. Likewise, I only need one look at you to know you truly are foreigners, and if it is true that you only just woke up in the middle of Nova Vassa's capital I can understand how you might have blundered into things you had no understanding of.

If you would come with me to see Prince Othmar, we'll forget this all ever happened, I'll even personally show this woman some leniency on the matter of her taxes." He suggested in a tone of obvious appeasement.

"Even better, you could make sure you personally never see her again for a few months." Suggested Alexander Diamondclaw.

"As for going to see the Prince... should we consider ourselves under arrest?" He inquired while starting to finger his longsword.

"Not in the least! You will have a rare opportunities to be honored guests of Prince Othmar. You can feel free to keep your weapons, though we will need to peace bond them before you encounter the Prince personally." The tax collector explained.

"Hmm... would being personal guests of the Prince Othmar happen to involve breakfast?" Alexander contemplated.

"Breakfast?" The tax collector repeated in a slightly bewildered tone of voice.

"We woke up in an antique shop less than an hour ago." Alexander reminded him.

"Ah yes of course, breakfast! I'm certain that if you are interested visiting the Prince, he'll have the royal cooks furnish you with some of the finest food in all of Nova Vassa." The tax collector promised.

"Well then, I'll be only to happy to pay him a visit." Alexander decided.

The militiaman seeing that there would be no further fighting let loose with a low lupine growl in James' direction.

In response the redhead shot back a hiss that was clearly meant to mimic the sound of an angry cat and even made a clawing motion with his left hand.

"I don't know why you're so down on this place Mirri, anywhere that you can punch an officer of the law in the face and get rewarded with a private audience to the ruler of the land and a free meal must have something going for it!" Cal noted.

"Don't get your hopes up too much Alchemist. He said they were looking for poison needles." Mirri warned Cal.

"So? It wouldn't be the first time I've brewed up a poison.." The blond haired man replied.

"There's a type of cactus found only in Nova Vassa that is known for the paralytic venom its needles are coated with. We call it a catspaw." Mirri answered.

End Chapter.

AN: James Firecat's understanding of the civic purpose of taxation leaves a lot to be desired. For one I honestly think that taxes probably DON'T get collected to help keep Falkovnia from invading in Richemulot (not that they aren't collected for other things), because last time I checked they don't have a standing army, just a bunch of citizens who have all promised to practice with a weapon and be ready defend their land in case of invasion.

It most assuredly does not help that anyone who has been reading along knows that James was living out in the portions of Richemulot that some snobs might not even consider "the real Richemulot" (IE the countryside rather than one of the three big cities).

Also, you would be surprised how little of this I'm having to make up, to an astounding degree this "book" writes itself, all be it not quite as quickly as the last one.

Sadly don't expect to get to see our heroes meet with the Prince for a while, I'm going on a semi-week long vacation starting on Tuesday (which means I will not be back until Sunday night) and I don't plan to try and power through the next chapter in two days.


	3. Chapter 3

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Three: I am the leader, the great successor, who would have known, ME! I should have known! I'd run for office, but who'd oppose me?

"What, is, that?" Asked Mirri Catwarrior as they were lead through a seemingly unimportant hallway in the Princes' Palace.

"It's a painting of Prince Othmar Bolshinik." The tax collector who was still guiding them answered, evidently quite confused by what had got one of his 'guests' so upset all of a sudden.

"What are those things he's holding in his hands?" Mirri continued, if anything growing more irritated rather than less, gesturing wildly at the painting which was only one of several.

"The Whip of Right, and the Rod of Might, symbols of how the Lawgiver has chosen him to rule Nova Vassa." The minor bureaucrat answered, still not certain of why this conversation was starting to feel so much like poking an ill-tempered plains cat.

"The Whip of Right and the Rod of Might. The Whip of Right and the Rod of Might? Please excuse me, I find myself feeling sickly all of a sudden... do you think you could possibly find a small room for me to lay down in and compose myself? One with thick walls would be best, you can stand outside and be certain that we will emerge as soon as I am better..." Mirri suggested.

Their guide's face filled with confusion, but at the same time one look into Mirri's eyes was all he needed to decide that granting this request would be a very good idea.

XXX XXX XXX

"The Whip of Right and the Rod of Might?! The Whip of Right and the Rod of Might! Of all the assholes to have ever sat at the head of council table he is unquestionably the biggest!" Mirri exclaimed in Low Mordentish as soon as the door was closed.

"Is there something you'd like to tell the group Mirri?" Suggested Alexander Diamondclaw before her temper could build up any more momentum behind it.

"Look, you know I don't like this place. Still I make it a habit to find out how it's doing every so often. I've got a few contacts, every century or so I pick up a book or two on Nova Vassan history with an eye towards everything that's happened recently. That's honestly about as frequently as I ever feel the need to check." Mirri explained.

"With that in mind, it has being how long exactly since you picked up your last history book?" Devi interjected.

"Ninety five, ninety six years... but that's not the point! The point is the Whip of Right and the Rod of Might! He's has had painting of himself holding them! Why doesn't he just take a crap in the Storsortstenstol while he's at it!" The black haired woman spat venomously.

"You missed the part where you told the rest of us exactly what is so important about one particular whip and stick." Cal reminded her.

"It's not a stick, it's a rod!" Mirri insisted at once, before gaining some small manner of control over her temper.

"The Whip of Right and the Rod of Might are the the two sole remaining artifacts of Jaanji the Højplads! Yet Othmar's had a picture, make that PICTURES, PLURAL, of himself painted while he's holding them! They're supposed to be so carefully guarded most of the time that peasants only ever hear stories about what they actually look like!

A Prince is only supposed to ever hold them during his coronation ceremony and even then only for a short period, who does Othmar think he is, holding those things long enough for some artist to paint his picture with them?" Mirri demanded to know, though no one in the room seemed forthcoming with an answer.

"Who was Jaanji the Højplads?" James asked, sensing that there was a good story waiting to be told.

Mirri hung her head and sighed.

"Skulls for Kali, it really is amazing how this stuff sticks with you no matter how long it has been. Okay, we don't have time for me to describe the entire history of Nova Vassa so I'll give you the short version.

The current Nova Vassan people, myself included, are actually a hybrid. It is just that we became so in the far distant past to the point that no one even bothers to think about it anymore.

Half of our history and lineage comes from a group of people known as the Tygaami who are lucky anyone even remembers their name for reasons that will soon become clear.

The other half comes from a group of people known as the Old Vassans, who used to live out on some unpleasant chunk of never quite thawing ice, where the five tribes made minor wars against one another, basically running out the clock until some large prosperous empire decided to wipe them out.

Then came Jaanji.

He started out as a chieftain of the Bolshnik tribe, the same clan that Othmar hails from, a fact that I'm sure is making Jaanji's skeleton ready to crawl out of its grave and come looking for revenge any day now.

Jaanji was many things, among them a master diplomat, at least as far as you consider such things Sir..." She addressed to Alexander.

"You mean he had a talent for grabbing two people about the shoulders, shaking them nice and hard then telling them that if they ever wanted to amount to anything they should follow his orders?" The silver haired man translated.

"Just so." Mirri agreed.

"Except that Jaanji wasn't just able to do it with people, he was able to it with an entire race of people, I'd say an entire nation, but before he came along the Old Vassans didn't really deserve the term.

He convinced them that it was pointless to wage wars that only killed off Old Vassans and passed a few miles of land back and forth, when if they turned their aggression outwards they might be able capture entirely new land!

So he lead the Old Vassan's out of their homeland as one huge rampaging horde, basically smashing their way through one kingdom after another like a drunken battering ram crew who didn't know when to stop and keeps ploughing through the walls of different farm houses.

It was glorious.

The Old Vassans had the strength of unity, the fact that they'd been going to war against one another for who knew how long, which meat that only the really vicious warlike bastards survived to breed, and Jaanji's tactical genius on their side, allowing them to conquer many more prosperous and numerous foes.

It didn't hurt that if you believe what the priests have to say on the matter Jaanji was also the first to believe in the Lawgiver and for his faith his he was rewarded with the ability to rupture the ground and summon forth an army of the dead souls yanked from the Hell of Slaves who were forced to obey his will.

I'm not denying that he may have been a powerful spell caster of some kind, it is just that their claim has a distinct stench of 'history is written by the winners' about it.

Jaanji went onto proclaim that the more severely any land he and his people conquered had tired to resist, the more severely they would suffer under his rule, and as tales of his power grew people began falling over themselves to surrender to the Old Vassans the first chance they got.

Jaanji conquered as much of the world as he could find, from the oceans on one side to the oceans on the other. The last people to fall to his armies were the Tygaami, the eastern horse-lords who ruled over a vast kingdom of rolling... well look out any window and you probably get the idea.

For their fierce resistance Jaanji's decree demanded that he slaughter the Tygaami down to the last woman and child as an example to others. Except that there were no others, as I said, every other land had already been conquered.

So Jaanji like a true Nova Vassa refused to let a little thing like an oath he had sworn get in the way of what he wanted, decided that the Tygaami would be spared in exchange for a steady supply of their horses which were... well once again just look out a window.

To simplify the matter and help pacify the land Jaanji established that Tygaam would be his new home and eventually the rulers of the four other tribes did the same.

In addition to the breeding of horses, breeding of other kind occurred, and when a rampaging beserker Old Vassan found a Maiden Tygaami very beautiful and worthy of ravishing nine months or so later a child of hybrid stock which would eventually come to be known as 'New Vassan' or Nova Vassans ends up being born.

Jaanji's got to live out the rest of his life in contentment and opulence, and if most of his empire fell apart after his death, well nobody was willing to try and beard the lion while he could still roar.

Before he died he established that in the wake of his death each tribe's chieftain should serve as a first among equals for five years before passing it along to the next, as a way to ensure a lasting peace among the five tribes.

There's that's the abridged version of how Nova Vassa came to be.

The point of the story is of course, that until Prince Othmar has conquered as far north as Castle Avernus and as far west as Castle Pantara he shouldn't be getting himself painted holding the Whip of Right and the Rod of Might! It's..." She paused for a long moment searching for what she wanted to say next.

"It's disrespectful to the memory of Nova Vassa's first and only king!" She finally settled on.

"Wow, I never knew you were a patriot like me..." James Firecat admitted surprised at how seriously Mirri took the history of her country.

"Patriot? Hah! That implies there's something that I like about Nova Vassa! I just... just have a healthy respect for those who earned their power the proper way, being born with nothing and conquering their way to the top.

That's why I respect you after all Sir, having a wooden sword shoved through your heart is a clear and indisputable way for someone to establish their dominance over you.

Anyway, I think I've pretty much cleared my head now and can be in the same room as Othmar for maybe half an hour without trying to kill him.

That said, for all I know he's going to be committing some fresh offense against the memory of a man a thousand times greater than him once we do see him in person. If that is the case, I highly suggest one of you gags me and tells him that I'm suffering from one of those weird illnesses where you think you're possessed by some divine being and babble words of a frequently obscene nature.

I'd hate to think that shooting my mouth of got all you killed needlessly, especially when if we'd gotten a chance to do some proper plotting ahead of time we'd be the ones doing the killing." She advised the group.

"Rope or cloth?" Devi inquired.

XXX XXX XXX

"Behold, the ruler of Nova Vassa, Prince Othmar Bolshnik!" Declared the herald before a few others blew notes upon their instruments.

The ruler of Nova Vassa sat before them upon a magnificent black stone throne.

"He's actually sitting on the..." Was all Mirri got out before Devi, Cal, James, and Florence tackled her to the ground.

"Dissension in the ranks?" Prince Othmar asked in a voice that for the moment was more amused than affronted.

He was a tall man in early middle age who had so far retained the darkness of his auburn hair, while his large and well groomed mustache (it was in point of fact large enough that its were even with his ears) had become smokey gray.

Alexander bowed graciously as if there weren't five people rolling on the ground behind him, one of them hissing like a recently soaked cat.

"One of my companions is suffering from a minor mental malady at the moment. As you may have already been told we were unexpectedly taken to your fine city, so we have not been able to get it treated yet. Your summons struck me as being so gracious that I could not possibly be so rude as to ask for it to be delayed for any reason. While she may have the strength of a madwoman my companions can see to it that she harms no one." He predicted.

Sure enough James eventually managed to get a cloth gag around Mirri's mouth while Devi slipped some rope about her hands binding them together. A stream of extremely muffled words that a careful ear might just be able to discern as hailing from the more 'colorful' section of the Low Mordentish language emerged from Mirri's mouth, but then she offered no further protest and lay still.

"Your servants have said that you are faced with a task that might best be resolved via the service of outsiders?" Alexander asked in a completely unruffled tone of voice.

"Yes. Though from what I've been told if you had bothered to display such good manners in the first place we would not be having this conversation." The Prince huffed with a touch of anger in his voice.

"If such were the case, you would still be searching for someone to deal with your problem, and I would be wondering where I could possibly find a suitable breakfast. A net loss for both of us, no?" Alexander pointed out.

The Prince of Nova Vassa took a long moment to size up the silver haired man.

"Well enough said. If my father had not taken ill when he did it would have been over two decades before this land could be graced by my rulership. Sometimes a small tragedy is necessary so that a greater good may come from it.

Before I tell you of my problems, I will know your names and skills so that I may be certain you are capable of resolving it, I will not have my time be wasted." He insisted.

"As you wish. My name is Alexander Diamondclaw, a humble sell sword who simply seeks to make some minor profit in the world. For reasons I can not fathom, the Mists have seen fit to place me within your capital. Still, it would be an honor to think that I and my companions could prove worthy of serving the Prince of as a land as vast and powerful as Nova Vassa.

My blond haired male companion is Cal Wright, a master of mechanisms and mixtures. The red haired member of the group is James Firecat, he is skilled with a knife and at the disarming of traps. The woman in green is Florence Bastien, if there is someone more knowledgeable about plants of any kind upon the Core I have not met them.

The elf is Devi Skye, upon whose all too often unlauded shoulders lays the burden of keeping us all fed and watered, for an army no matter how small, marches on its stomach. Finally on the floor is Mirri Catwarrior, she is our expert in the undead.

As for our exactly how skilled we are in our chosen field... select yourself a champion, and find me a wooden sword. " Alexander offered in the most courtly manner imaginable.

Prince Othmar pondered that particular request and then shook his head.

"That will not be necessary... there is a look in your eye, the look a man not easily denied what he desires. You are not very many but neither are they supposedly. I shall give you a chance, and if you earn my ire by failing it will be as if the Silver Spear of the Lawgiver himself struck you down.

Nova Vassa I lament is ever beset by bandits, no sooner has one group been eradicated than another springs up. One band that operates out of a forest known as the Briarweed has become bolder than I could possibly imagine though! They attacked a tribute caravan being sent to me by my most trusted servant Tristen Hiregaard.

The Lawgiver hates bandits and as his representative upon the mortal plane it is my duty to see them punished for their actions.

The caravan itself was loaded down with tribute in gold, silver, and platinum along with some mystical artifacts he claims to have recently discovered. I know how mercenaries are drawn to such things like magpies, so if you can recover what has been stolen you may keep those artifacts, and one out of every four coins you find.

I would normally send my own soldiers to deal with such matters, but I fear that one of my captains may have been suborned or be in league with the bandits for they always know when my men are going on the hunt.

A few unassuming half vagabonds like you are much less likely to draw attention." Othmar predicted.

"A sound and just strategy. It will be a great honor to have such a just and princely task placed before me. I trust that we shall be furnished with all that we could reasonably require to see it through to its success? I can boil my requirements down to two simple things at the moment, a map and a meal." Alexander replied.

"See to it." Prince Othmar Bolshinik of Nova Vassa commanded at once.

XXX XXX XXX

"Ahh, there's nothing like a good breakfast to help a man recover from the unwelcome surprise of being tossed halfway across the Core." Ruminated Alexander Diamondclaw after having just wolfed down a large haunch of well cooked meat.

"MGGRIGJSSDFJSLSH!" Noted Mirri Catwarrior who was still wearing a cloth gag.

"Do you agree to behave if we take it off?" Alexander replied calmly.

Mirri shook her head emphatically.

"Fair enough, given that I can't recall the last time you ever actually 'behaved', but are you willing to at least promise not to harm anyone or make any comments regarding illicit acts our host's maternal ancestor may have preformed with hoofed quadrupeds or of a similarly invective nature?" He suggested as a compromise.

Mirri reluctantly nodded.

James swiftly removed her gag.

"I still can't believe you prance around like that for someone who isn't one twentieth the man you are." Mirri groused.

"Fine honeyed words have no substance, no true meaning, they cease to be even before one is finished speaking them. Actions on the other hand have meaning. Actions like Othmar arranging to have this rather splendid small feast made for us.

I addressed Othmar in the manner all men of his ilk tend to favor, lavish praise. As early as tomorrow I doubt he'll even remember exactly what I said to him, I on the other hand, think I'll be keeping the memory of this meal with me for a good long while..." Alexander boasted happily.

"He's the darklord of Nova Vassa, I'm sure of it." Mirri growled at a barely audible level.

"He won't be the first that we've ever done a task for." He reflected, his eyes briefly glancing in Cal's direction.

"Just because he's a darklord doesn't mean all of his foes are pure of heart and noble of spirit. It's in the nature of evil to turn upon itself sooner or later, in fact I consider myself something of an expert at helping the process along." Alexander promised turning to meet Mirri's scorching gaze.

"He was sitting on the Storsortstenstol, the Great Black Throne of Jaanji the Højplads! At this rate why doesn't he just hang a sign outside his palace, 'I'm what's wrong with Nova Vassa, I'm the evil at the heart of the land, I'm making everything worse for everybody!' This city... this nation deserves a better class of dictator." Mirri pouted, whatever sort of appetite she might have possibly possessed quite soured by her recent discoveries.

"You mean the benevolent kind like Jacqueline?" James Firecat eagerly suggested, as for all his love of Richemulot and the Renier family's current matriarch he wasn't quite vapid enough to avoid noticing that Le Grande Dame ruled with an unquestionable iron fist beneath her velvet glove.

"No, I mean the smart kind." Mirri responded at once.

Then after she noticed a certain amount of twitching of the eyebrows and gaping of the jaws coming form her red haired companion she clarified herself.

"Look, I can't speak to how smart or not Jacqueline is, I've never been to Richemulot while she was in charge. From everything I've heard the woman's a tactical genius who helped single highhandedly blunt two different invasions of her homeland, one of them back when her Grandfather was still running the country.

That said, that information doesn't exactly come from the most trustworth... the most unbias... the most historical of sources so I'm simply not qualified to make a judgment one way or another.

What I can say is that things aren't supposed to be done like this in Nova Vassa! Remember how I said spraying perfume on horse dung in the national sport? Well you're supposed to be actively doing it!

Whatever evil acts you're committing, there's supposed to be a thin veneer of respectability over them! I mean give me a tyrant like Saint Jokum the Pacifier!

Do you know how he obeyed the rules about how every five years you were supposed to switch off control for the leader of the next family in line?

By spending his five years of legitimate power hiring assassins, forging evidence, holding show trials, brewing poisons, and otherwise killing off each and every single member of the four other families who were of age to rule. This was swiftly followed by having himself declared regent of all their offspring, so when his five years were up, he continued to reign in the name of one of the children who's parents he had murdered.

THERE was a man who knew how to grab an entire country by the throat and do it with style!

Given all the changes we're seeing I somehow doubt Prince Othmar is sticking to the five year trade offs either but I bet his excuse boils down to 'f**k you, what you gonna do about it?' and nothing else.

It's... it's depressing to see fine Nova Vassan treachery falling by the wayside for such a banal system of rulership by brute force." Mirri sighed despondently.

"So, is anyone else glad I decided to pour an oil of silence on the door into this room?" Cal asked his eyes locked tight on the door in question.

He was quite certain that if one word of Mirri's commentary on the current ruler had managed to reach anyone listening outside there would already be people breaking it down to drag them all off to the closest dungeon.

Luckily, he had lifetime of knowledge about how it was still quite possible to get burned at the stake (among other even more unpleasant things) in certain places for practicing alchemy. Thus he'd perfected the art of knowing when not to say anything... and how to brew up oils of silence which would help keep people from hearing anything you did actually say.

"So after we go get what he wants, try to hand it over to him, then find ourselves faced with his sudden but inevitable betrayal, I get to claim Prince Othmar's head all right?" Mirri suggested licking her lips in anticipation for the event.

"If that's what it takes to make you happy, I've never found it matters terribly much who killed someone as long as they're dead." Alexander noted calmly.

End Chapter.

AN: Much like Alex, at times I am lying liar who lies. In this chapter we see Alex actually state something that's only been implicit up to this point. Remember how I've reiterated over and over that he's chaotic good, so he'll lie to people (even other good people) if he feels the situation calls for it?

That's not just him taking advantage of the flexibility that his chosen alignment offers him, that's part of Alex's way of life and philosophy. He simply does not place that much value on words as opposed to actions. Thus, he is completely willing to say whatever words he may need to manipulate who he's dealing with.

Since he's the group's leader, Alex and Mirri are probably tied for highest charisma score, Mirri has it in general attractiveness but Alexander has it in force of personality. Also despite what Mirri says about Alex's "unorthodox" approach to diplomacy he probably has ranks in the regular thing for dealing with people the way he dealt with Othmar.

I knew as soon as I started writing this book (and a fair bit before it) that I wanted to have Mirri know Nova Vassa, but not be up to date on current events that had been taking place there. A general dislike combined with a long enough lifespan was more than enough of an excuse/explanation.

Mirri still knows far more than any other member of the group, and plenty more than enough to be a good guide, but at the same time I didn't want to miss out on the fun of having her react to how in some ways the place has gotten even worse since she left it. Not to mention the fun that will occur as she meets some of her nations other notable figures.

Also lets talk about politics for a moment. It's worth pointing out at that at the moment across the entire Core of Ravenloft, the closest anyone would come to recognizing the idea of "one man one vote" is to say "yes, Strahd Von Zarovich is the one man, he has the one vote" or similar. Rule by right of birth, and absolute power are pretty much the order of the day and taken as a given.

The best that you can possibly hope for is that you wind up with the right person getting absolute power and not being absolutely corrupted by it. This is why James who is idealistic to a fault does not object to the way that Jacqueline Renier runs Richemulot (or at least what he knows about it) because ideas like democracy, republic, and not letting any one person have the power to make, enforce, and preside in judgment over laws have not yet occurred in Ravenloft.

Granted, the fact that the population of many domains are assailed by some kind of internal or external foe (in Richemulot's case wererats internally Falkovnians externally) also tends to make the idea of a streamlined system of government without a lot of checks and balances seem appealing.

In theory Nova Vassa's system should actually be one of the more liberal on the Core, because no prince should be willing to go too far out on a limb for fear of what will happen when the their five year period is up and some other family gets control of things. This being Ravenloft and Nova Vassa being Nova Vassa, in practice it just seems to breed a lot of princes who become determined to do unto others before they get a chance to do unto them.

Also despite how terse Mirri's summation of it is, she does actually rather perfectly nail Othmar's approach to why he's still in power. As far as I can find/discover he's never given an official reason why he didn't step down when his five years were up. Well in some versions of the story (despite what Mirri claims the "official" sport of Nova Vassa is actually the retcon, see how just about every version of Malken's back-story we get disagrees with the one that came before it) he was still so young that Tristan Hiregaard acted as his regent for much of the time period, and said that this shouldn't count against him so he wanted another five years, but at the end of that five years "f**k you, what you gonna do about it?" Pretty much sums up what he told the other four families.

The Hiregaard family supports him because they're the "status quo is good" family regardless of how actually good or not the status quo is. The Chekiv family supports him because they are the furthest away from the Bolshnik family's land holdings and so Othmar mostly leaves them alone so long they back his power play.

The Rivtoff and Vistin families both hate his guts, but neither of them can agree over which one of them should get to have their patriarch be Prince first if they toppled Othmar, so... well see above.

Finally some of you who are familiar with this adventure may have noticed that this chapter marked a rather noticeable deviation from the adventure book as written, don't worry I know what I'm doing, or at least I think I do.


	4. Chapter 4

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Four: I fought the law, and the law won, I fought the law and the law won.

"You know, just once it'd be nice to go someplace and not find the locals screaming their heads off in terror." Cal Wright reflected.

Sure enough a great many people were doing exactly that and running about like a recently beheaded cockatrice.

After their meeting with (and meal without) Prince Othmar the group had decided to leave Kantora. The quickest way out of the city took them past the section of the city where its largest temple to the Lawgiver was located.

Mirri had been tempted to take a moment and poke her head in just to prove a point to herself but before she'd gotten the chance matters had gone somewhat awry.

"SURRRPNNNT FURRR MEEEHHHHH CCAAAAAAHH REEVVVVVURRRR MEEEEH!" Announced a vaguely humanoid figure that stalked through the streets.

It was the right generally symmetrical shape, but it was horribly emaciated, and bones were clearly visible beneath its parchment-thin skin while clumps of dried earth clung to its withered frame. Its "words" were accompanied by a feline yowl as a number of cats had taken up vantage points on the roofs overhead gazing down at the figure.

"You know it is a shame, all of a sudden I wish I could have had a bite of that roast you ate Sir." Mirri informed Alexander.

It was the group's standard 'code' that any time it would be contraindicated to reveal exactly how sharp her sense really were, Mirri would make references to being hungry instead as her way of informing them that she was seeing something but not hearing its heartbeat.

That meant that either the creature before them was nothing but an illusion, or far more likely, it was undead. It certainly moved with the sort of stiff unbending gait that one would associate with mindless undead.

Alexander slowly nodded to himself and began to approach the creature. As he did so it began to turn towards one person in particular who was awkwardly hobbling away from it, moving much slower than the others, so slowly that he was unlikely to be able to outrun his pursuer.

"Hello again Nicolai." Alexander noted in an offhand manner as he brushed past the merchant one hand on his blade's hilt.

The creature headed straight for Alexander, not as if to attack him, but rather as if unable to realize that he was even standing there between him and its true target.

"Do you know what you're doing?" He demanded of the gaunt figure.

"SURRRPNNNT FURRR MEEEHHHHH CCAAAAAAHH REEVVVVVURRRR MEEEEH!" It roared again.

"Well then, I'll take that as no." He decided.

It was practically over before it even started.

Alexander took one step forward and the sun briefly glinted of Wolf Claw as it came free from its sheath. He executed a single precise swing which severed his target's head, and then with an expert twist Alexander guided the weapon back into its sheath.

The monster sunk to the ground its head landing next to it a few moments later. Both of them rapidly dissolved into dust, a strange wispy shape like a bird with a human head quickly taking flight in its wake.

Then everything seemed to go back to normal and the cats who had been watching scattered as cats are ever wont to do.

"Anything about that cat box you've suddenly remembered since we last talked?" Alexander asked in a surprisingly convivial tone of voice.

The antique store owner shook his head rapidly.

"I've not idea at all what's going on. After you left I pried the gems out of that coffin because I needed to pay for the priests to fix this..." He paused for a moment and pulled up his right pants leg.

The scratches that the cat creature had given him earlier in the morning were now marked by ugly red inflammation.

"I still don't know what that thing is... but I suspect that wounds such of these... well the sooner I have a priest look at them the better." He explained.

Alexander nodded in agreement taking a long moment to examine the wound also.

"Hmm... I've had some experience with a few diseases a decidedly mystical nature myself, don't think I've seen this one before though." He admitted.

"Well I'd have lost a bet with myself, it's not mummy rot." Admitted Mirri Catwarrior as she also took a look at the wound in question.

"Mummy rot?" Nicolai gasped clearly not liking the sound of it one bit.

"Nasty disease. People tend to pick it up after being physically attacked by mummies, hence the name. Causes the body to decay and rot away from the inside until the victim turns into dust.

That cat which attacked you, it wasn't exactly wrapped in linens but you yourself said that it's container was some sort of religious icon correct? You find mummies inside those things the same way that you find vampires in coffins. Luckily for you mummy rot is yellow and purple, while your wound is red.

Still, if I were you, I might want to make sure all the gems you took from that coffin wind up in the church's coffers.

After all, who lays on their deathbed wishing they had done less to support the Lawgiver?" She noted whimsically.

Nicolai nodded in agreement with her, lowered his pants leg and hobbled off favoring his uninjured leg.

"I'm not quite sure what that thing you just killed was Sir, but I really hope there's more than one of them..." She reflected with flagrant malice.

"That's not very nice." Devi Skye interjected.

"Are you familiar with what the Iron Faith has to say about elves?" Mirri asked pointedly.

"Just an observation, not a condemnation." Devi amended.

XXX XXX XXX

"You're next." Announced a sign hanging from the body of a decaying Nova Vassan soldier at the edge of the Briarweed Forest.

It wasn't the only such body there either.

"Not the most cordial of greetings I've ever gotten from bandits..." Reflected Alexander Diamondclaw.

"What's your plan?" Cal asked as he studied the heavy green foliage that lay before him.

Alexander looked up at the setting sun, they were probably only a few hours away from nightfall now.

"Florence, it's a forest, impress me." The silver haired man commanded.

The dryad nodded and then began to repeat a series of gestures and chants once for each member of the group except for Mirri. Then she stepped past the dead bodies and into the Briarweed Forest proper.

Trees limbs, grasses, brambles, and all other manner of plant life seemed to slide away form her allowing her to pass through the foliage without her movement being slowed in the slightest.

"Whatever they may have going for them, they don't seem to have any magical precautions." She confidently told the others.

"There are plenty of ways that people can make a visitor feel unwelcome even without magic. James get up there with Florence and keep your eyes open." Alexander commanded.

XXX XXX XXX

"Snare trap connected to that tree, which along with the pit trap about fifty feet up ahead of us makes an even dozen. You're right Alex, this is one of the most 'unwelcome' style 'welcomes' I've gotten in a good long while." James Firecat reflected, using one of his many knives to carefully disable the trap in question.

"Shrieker mushrooms also." Florence advised.

"Shrieker what now?" James repeated the word in confusion and surprise.

"Shrieker mushrooms. If you brush up against them they emit a loud and piercing noise, hence their name. Best to keep our distance." The dryad explained.

"We're managing to make good time even with all these traps, but there's only so much of this that I'm willing to take. If they think that their safety lies in tricks and traps then we're going to show them a few them of our own. Mirri... PHHHTT..." Alexander bit down softly on his lower lip and exhaled through his mouth forcefully.

The black haired woman nodded.

She closed her eyes, and then slowly but surely her entire body transformed into a swirling white mist that drifted away from the five remaining members of the group.

For their part they just stood around waiting, leaning against various trees and bits and pieces of the environment that James had been careful to approve as being free of danger.

Eventually the white mist returned and reformed itself into the shape of Mirri Catwarrior, who looked no more discomforted by her transformation than a normal woman would have been by the process of changing clothes.

"Six of them. They're four hundred and thirty six meters ahead and twenty seven to the left of that. Leader is a woman with red hair. They were sitting around cooking a meal when I last saw them, not sure if they still are... as you might guess I haven't spent a lot of time studying how long it takes to heat up food." She pointed out, as like most vampires Mirri Catwarrior subsided on blood, and blood alone.

"You're sure that you have the distance down exactly?" Alexander demanded.

"I counted and double counted it Sir." She insisted.

"You said that you triple counted it that time that time with the cliff." Cal reminded her bitterly.

"Back then I was lying. I do that." Mirri noted in the same tone of voice that a cobbler might mention that they repaired shoes.

"Anyway, after that particular instance I took a some time to familiarize myself with the distance system that the rest of the Core uses. Frankly the only amounts I care about are quarts and gallons, preferably of blood.

Still, since evidently Nova Vassan feet aren't good enough for the rest of the Core, I sorted out how meters work. Now, is our plan for victory to stand here and keep talking until they die of old age? Because if that is the plan, Alchemist you won't be around to see it." She advised.

"Tree type?" Alexander requested, completely ignoring the quarrel that had been going on a few moments ago.

"Oak. A strong oak tree that their leader has her back to. That should be a perfect for us." She advised.

"Any sign of the treasure that they stole?" Alexander inquired.

"No great big piles of glinting coins laying around waiting for us to claim them if that's what you mean." She admitted.

Alexander Diamondclaw nodded and turned back to Florence.

"James and Mirri will make it easy for you, once we get there, lets try and knock them out cold in a friendly sort of manner. Present company excluded, it's very hard to get useful information out of a corpse." Alexander commanded.

Then he started walking towards the oak tree that Mirri had pointed out for him.

XXX XXX XXX

Chezna the Blood-Cat leader of the Briarweed Forest Bandits was sitting down with her back to an oak tree enjoying a simple meal as she had countless times before.

Then all of a sudden she felt it happen, something was about to go dreadfully horribly wrong.

Such premonitions were one of the few ties that remained to the people who had exiled her, and they were never, ever wrong.

The red haired woman drew her dagger and rolled away from the tree careful not to tumble her way right into the fire.

"What is it Chezna?" Asked Andor just in time for her follower's question to be answered in the most unpleasant way possible.

It was as if the tree that she was leaning against suddenly was something else entirely. A tall silver haired man wearing an eyepatch stepped out it, a longsword held loosely in one hand, the other reaching into the tree itself.

He was dressed in a black outfit, and on his right shoulder was a housecat with fur as red as Chezna's hair, while on his left was a bat. Before any of them could gather their wits enough to the react he tugged with his "empty" hand and pulled a woman into being through the tree.

She had one hand reaching into the tree and pulled out another woman, who had a hand reaching into the tree and pulled from it a man.

A man who she pulled through by the shoulder because he'd been using both of his hands to hold steady a wicked looking firearm of some sort that he now leveled straight at Chezna.

Then the silver haired man spoke.

"Sorry to get in the way of a dinner, believe me, I of all people am well aware of how annoying it is to have a meal interrupted. Still I have a very important question I'd like to ask you.

Which of you like, really, deeply, passionately, ferociously, tremendously, enjoy being alive?" He asked flashing them a smile as he now used both hands to steady his sword.

At the same time the cat jumped from his shoulder and transformed into a snarling beast the size of a plains cat while the bat took flight, perching on the branches of one of the nearby trees and transforming into a maliciously smiling woman.

Then Chezna felt it again.

Things were bad, and about to get worse, much much worse.

As the paranormal feeling subsided, Chezna found it being replaced with something much more tangible as she could suddenly hear the trees rustle without wind to move their branches. It was as if the entire Briarweed Forest was alive, and closing ranks against her.

"My offer will remain open for the next thirty seconds or until another of you draws their weapons whichever comes first." He clarified his single green eye glinting in the campfire light.

End Chapter

AN: Mirri's points on the color of Mummy Rot are correct as far as I can tell based on what The Awakening (the adventure book this story is based on) has to say about it.

Also the first spell Florence is using to help the group move through the forest is Freedom of Movement, a fourth level spell that we've seen her cast before. Granted since she has a spontaneous casting set up for her druidic magic, it's to be expected that she'll use the same spells over and over again.

The other spell she uses is a sixth level spell Transport via Plants, which is a bit more limited in its application than the traditional arcane magical spell Teleport, but on the other hand, if you know where the tree you want to go to is, then there's no chance of it going wrong so for the limitation of needing plants to work with you get the benefits of the 7th level spell teleport without error as a sixth level spell.

Sadly Transport via Plants is really loosely defined in how it works in the fluff since in theory the group should all emerge at once, but instead I decided to have the "combat time" be the same (the foe's too surprised to react as the group pulls themselves one by one out of the tree) while making it a little more clear what was going on.

Also, that spell works on yourself, and a number of medium creatures equal to your level divided by three, round down. If Florence is level 15 there's no way she can move the entire group, except that the rules also say that one large creature can count as two mediums, or two smalls count as one medium. So James goes to cat form and Mirri to bat, which makes the group made up of four medium creatures and two small instead of six medium. Shapeshifting, you'd be surprised just how many uses it has!

Chezna can feel the group coming because she's a darkling or an exiled Vistani, and they get psychic warnings that make them the next best thing to impossible to ambush, even if you're about to leap out of the tree they're leaning against.

Granted all it really lets her know is that she's about to be in a great deal of trouble, because if you decide to use a forest as your base of operations, and you don't have a druid in your group (and by the Adventure Book they don't) then you're just asking for a load of trouble when some people with one shows up.

Also as far as I can tell, systems of measurement are still sort of willy nilly in Ravenloft, I doubt that the Core actually has a standard length measurement system, but what the hell there's always time for a metric system (and how some nations (well one nation in particular) may refuse to accept it) joke!


	5. Chapter 5

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck!

Chapter Five: What if god was one of us?

"So this is what has become of the proud bandits who who once dared to raid my lands!" Chuckled Prince Othmar when he saw what had become of Chezna and her followers.

They were still alive and unhurt, that was about the only good thing one could say about their situation.

They had been hung upside down at the edge of the Briarweed Forest right next to the corpses that they had left as a warning. All of them had their hands bound behind their backs (Devi's bag of holding could always be counted on to have plenty of rope) and every one of them except the leader herself had been gagged.

After doing that, Florence had used her magic to summon a bird to carry a letter of their success to Nova Vassa's Prince.

A few hours past the dawn of the next day he'd ridden out with two dozen of his knights to handle the matter personally.

"That's all I am to you Othmar? You never write, you never send any of your servants who aren't trying to kill me, and now you don't even remember me! I'm hurt Othmar, hurt! Why I remember you back when Tristen Hiregaard was your regent and you were only... well I'd show you how high but my hands are quite literally tied at the moment.

That, and there's the fact that that hanging upside down like this my arms aren't long enough to show you." Chezna mocked him.

Mirri who had been rather disappointed about Alexander managing to convince the bandits to surrender peacefully now seemed much less despondent.

"Oh, what's all this? Tell me more, tell me more..." She cooed.

Chezna shot a "smile" at Mirri, but only because she was hanging upside down.

"If you don't know what I mean then I'm not saying anything else. All the Princeling needs to know is that just because he's captured me and all my men, doesn't mean he's captured all my friends.

In particular, a friend who I've given orders to dig up certain things I've buried if I don't get in contact with fairly frequently.

So go ahead Othmar, lock me up, have me and my men beheaded, just make sure to wear plenty of green to my funeral though, because you'll be needing to morn your reign over Nova Vassa also!" The red headed woman growled.

"Is there something that we should know?" Alexander inquired in a conversational enough tone.

"Only that bandits will say anything when faced with the prospect of having to pay for their crimes. Captain, see to it that this woman and all off her followers are taken in chains to my finest dungeon cells.

After that, we can interrogate them at our leisure, and see to it that justice is done. Now then. as for you..." Othmar twisted his hips as he spoke, making his horse turn to face Alexander.

"Yes?" The silver haired man responded, while at the same time one of his hands began to twitch slightly in the direction of Wolf Claw.

"I must say, you and your band have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes! Have you been able to able to find my lost treasure?" Nova Vassa's ruler wanted to know.

"Well we ended up finding somebody's treasure that is for certain. When she's not suffering from debilitating illnesses Mirri is quite persuasive. Devi?" Alexander half commanded half requested.

The elf nodded and then began to pull out several handfuls of coins laying them on the ground. Once she was done, she stepped away from them and gave a small rather forced bow.

The knights began to sort through the pile and a once they were done, they pushed a noticeably smaller pile back towards Alexander. Othmar watched the process and nodded slowly.

"There is the one in four I promised you. You know, a lesser man might have been brazen enough to lie to me, and claim that they didn't find anything." Prince Othmar reflected.

Alexander simply shrugged calmly.

"Lesser men only think of the immediate future. If we disappointed you, then you'd never even think of hiring us again. Why, you might even tell these men you're traveling with to attack us. Life is a great deal easier for everyone if we all work together." Alexander reflected.

"A place for everyone, and everyone in their place. Your words do the Lawgiver proud. Enjoy your magical items, you've earned them." Othmar decreed.

He turned his horse around and took off with his knights following after him.

Mirri watched him go and then made a vaguely beckoning gesture in his direction.

"Come back... you forgot to betray us so we could kill you!" She stated to empty air, as if she couldn't believe what had just happened.

"It looks like Othmar plays a deeper game then you give him credit for." Devi noted.

"Probably too cowardly to come at us without his entire army." Mirri decided, though she was still clearly miffed about this turn of events.

"Either way, lets go see if we can't find the other half of our payment since the Prince responded before we had a chance to." Cal Wright suggested.

"Chezna said there was a magical staff of some kind hidden inside a tree that looks like a monster. Tell me Florence, do you think that you can possibly find one particular tree inside an entire forest?" Alexander asked the dryad.

"Trust me, where you see a needle in a haystack, I see picking out a thoroughbred in the prime of its life amid a collection of nags." She replied confidently.

XXX XXX XXX

"Which would be this one." She declared as the group paused before a tree.

Sure enough its bark had been carved in a unpleasant replica of a human face that looked ready to close around a large opening in its trunk the moment someone dared to reach a hand in. Florence casually wrapped a hand against the side of the thing then nodded to herself.

"Nothing but simple woodcarving to terrify the unaware, this tree is alive, but only in the way all trees are." She reassured them.

"Glad to hear it, still best to take precautions before sticking a hand somewhere you can't see." Alexander reminded the group.

He drew Wolf Claw and then began to slowly and carefully insert the longsword into the opening. He shifted his grip and waved it around some as well, actions certain to provoke any creatures currently living within the hole.

When none responded he took a step back and nodded to himself in satisfaction.

"There might still be traps, but at least we can rule out poisonous snakes and the like." He informed the group.

"In that case just stand clear Alex, I've got this..." James Firecat promised the others.

The werecat approached the opening, studied it for a moment, then gingerly worked his gloved hands around the opening.

Only once he had completed a full 360 degree rotation about it did he go so far as to slowly and carefully stick a hand into it.

Inch by inch he reached in a little further until his probing fingers were rewarded.

"Hello... what's this... feels like it's made of wood, but a different kind of wood than the tree itself..." He happily announced before wrapping both hands around it and yanking hard.

A moment later James Firecat fell backwards his body stiff and motionless. Both of his hands were gripped tightly around a wooden staff with exquisitely carved cat figures on both ends.

"Hey, are you still with us fuzz face?" Cal asked wondering what could possibly have happened to him.

"Heart rate is roughly... one hundred ten beats per minute, that's on the low side for him." Mirri informed the group.

Vampire ears tended to be very sensitive to the sound of beating hearts (given the pumping of blood they went hand in hand with) and James' faster than normal heart rate betrayed his nature as a natural lycanthrope.

"Check his gloves, if they don't have any holes, rips, or tears in them then it can't be poison." Devi suggested.

Mirri got down on her feet to do exactly that, and began to slowly try and pry the staff from James' hands and get a better look at his gloves.

All of a sudden a pair of brown eyes flew wide open and James yanked on the staff hard, trying to pull it tight against his chest.

"My mother... my mother wanted me to have this." He announced in a dreamy voice.

"What in the name of Kali's six arms are you talking about James? You haven't gotten a letter from your mother in over a month, and there's no way a letter from her could have found you in Nova Vassa when she thought you were in Kartakass." Mirri pointed out, finding his statements nonsensical even by the more liberal standards of "sense" that James often employed.

She did however let go of the staff, in fact all of a sudden, it felt like she HAD to let go of the staff.

Not only that, but looking too closely at the cat on the top or bottom of the staff made her head pound and eyes feel bloody.

"James? Why did you call me James? My name is Maahes." Asked James Firecat in a confused faraway voice.

"Florence, is that staff magic?" Alexander asked abruptly, trusting his female companion to be more knowledgeable about such matters than he was.

"Do plants thrive on sunlight and water?" She responded instantly.

"Can you tell if it's currently casting some kind of spell on James?" He further prompted.

"My own powers have never been that precise. Luckily, Gaia also gifted me with plenty of common sense, so I think it is safe to assume 'yes' until we see proof otherwise. Let me try hitting it with my best dispel..." The blond haired woman decided.

She made a few complicated hand motion and uttered words that sounded like the cool clear blubbing of a brook.

Nothing happened.

Her shoulder's slumped and she shook her head.

"No, not even close. The enchantment on that staff, it's ancient and powerful in a way that very few things in this world are." She admitted.

'Maahes' looked up at them and smiled.

"It most assuredly is, as befits a gift from my mother who has passed it on to me so that I might use it to strike down evil." He stated proudly.

"This is getting absurd, but clearly that's never stopped my life before, so might as well play along... Maahes what is your mother's name?" Cal Wright asked in the sort of sing song voice people used to patronize the insane.

"Bastet." He answered without a moment's hesitation.

Cal held up his right hand next to his head and spun it around swiftly in a more or less Core universal gesture for suggesting someone who had taken leave of their senses.

"I can see you doing that Callan, and I don't appreciate it." Maahes grumbled.

"Well I hate it when people call me Callan so that makes two of us." Cal shot back.

"You still remember his name?" Alexander interrupted before this particular feud could go any further.

"Why shouldn't I? We've all been traveling companions for more than long enough Alexander." The red haired werecat replied.

"Alexander?" The single eyed man repeated his full name in bemusement, as prior to this James had always favored the diminutive 'Alex' which Alexander tended to allow only James (for the reason that it would be too bloody difficult to convince him to do otherwise) and Florence (for reasons of affection) to use.

"Do you still remember me?" Mirri practically growled ready for this particular conversation to abruptly take a turn for the worse.

"Miriam, what kind of a question is that? I would sooner forget my ears than forget you!" He pleaded.

"Miriam?" Mirri gasped in astonishment.

"Okay, that's it, I've had all I can stands, I can't stands no more.

My father had a way of dealing with magical items that wouldn't behave, it probably also works on people under the sway of magical artifacts." She noted before straddling James.

"What's your name?" She repeated.

"Maahes." James answered.

She slapped him.

Not hard, or at least not "hard" for a vampire, given that Mirri was more than capable of slapping someone with such force that their neck (and the person in question) didn't survive the experience.

"What's your name?" Mirri asked again.

"Maahes Firecat." James answered.

Which earned him another slap from Mirri.

"What is your name?" She repeated.

"James Maahes." James answered at which point Mirri struck him a third time.

"What is your name?" The vampire hissed.

"James Maahes Firecat." Answered James.

Mirri paused for a moment, pulled back her white gloved hand, and then let it go limp and shrugged.

"You know what... that's really about the best I could probably hope for." Mirri admitted as she clambered off James' body.

"I'm pleased to hear that, I know my flesh knits quickly but that doesn't mean I am immune to pain." James muttered while rubbing his darkened cheek.

"Why don't we figure out how much else he still remembers about his past?" Devi suggested.

"Why are we even having this conversation, do we not have more important matters to attend to?" James insisted.

Alexander's Diamondclaw's right leg twitched slightly, the sort of twitch that suggested it might soon be pressing down on James' stomach, or doing even more unpleasant things to him.

"Nothing is more important to me than the safety and well being of my pack, physically and mentally. That includes the you Omega. Now why don't you stand up and let go of the staff?" He suggested evenly.

James allowed his hands to relax from a grip so tight that he might have otherwise ended up breaking the staff in half before he'd let go of it.

"If you truly insist, but I hardly see how putting it down for one instant makes much of a difference." He pointed out as he stood up and left the staff on the ground.

"Well so much for the theory that not touching the staff would change your personality." Alexander admitted openly.

"Why should it? It's just a piece of wood. Granted it is a piece of wood enchanted with some of the strongest magic my mother's high priestesses could ever muster." James noted, as if he had not a single clue as to why they might have expected his personality to change once he was no longer holding the staff.

"Does the word 'Richemulot' ring a bell for you at the moment James? Perhaps 'Jacqueline' also?" Mirri suggested figuring that certain words would likely help "James" win out over "Maahes" and if those two didn't have some sort of effect, she was fresh out of ideas.

James just stood there, his entire body suddenly hunched over at an awkward angle. It was almost physically possible to see that behind his eyes half of his brain was vehemently disagreeing with the other half.

Eventually some kind of agreement was reached.

"You mean the land from which my father hails from, where it was born, and to whose Grande Dame I have sworn an utmost oath of fealty?" He exclaimed sounding just a touch unsure of himself.

Even Mirri couldn't help but wince.

She had never met James' mother, but to be somehow completely and utterly edited out of your own son's memories, that seemed to be unnecessarily cruel fate even to her!

"So you're the son of a mortal man from Richemulot, and a goddess named Bastet?" Mirri repeated making it clear that she found this particular prospect highly dubious.

"Haven't you ever heard stories of mortal women being impregnated by gods? Same principle." The werecat insisted.

There might have been some stories like that involving the ancient Nova Vassan gods but even Mirri wasn't old enough to remember them.

So instead she turned her attention back to Alexander.

"What are we going to do about... this?" She exclaimed holding a hand out in James' direction trying to encompass everything that was going on at the moment.

"That staff, Othmar said it was recently found by Tristen Hiregaard, I think we need to go see him and discover exactly how much he knows about the staff." Alexander decided.

"So your current plan is to just go waltzing into a castle which belongs to one of the five most powerful men in Nova Vassa, then interrogate him at your leisure? With all due respect Sir, I think Maahes is talking more sense than you are." Mirri warned.

"If he doesn't feel like seeing me, I'm sure you could convince him to lend me some of his time. After all, I've heard you can be quite persuasive, can't you Mirri?" Alexander fired back.

Mirri knew that he was just trying to deflect from the overall weakness of his plan by shoving that particular burden onto her.

Knowing it, and being able to resist the challenge were two separate things though.

"Manipulating one of the heads of the five families to have a meeting with some random commoner who isn't even from Nova Vassa in the first place? That sort of meeting is so far outside normal procedure I think it is actively illegal. It's called Viggo's Folly, people aren't supposed to associate with those far beneath their stature. Othmar probably couldn't have gotten away with meeting us if it wasn't clear that the he believes laws are for other people." Mirri explained.

"Now, that means if I pull it off, not only will we get some more ideas about that staff... but we'll also be able hold this meeting over Tristen's Hireegard's head as blackmail material, which just so happens to be my favorite color of mail!" She noted with joy while clasping her hands together deviously.

"Well then, I think we have our marching orders orders, any objections James?" Alexander offered.

James Maahes Firecat bent down to pick up the staff and then shook his head offering the group a friendly if slightly vacant smile.

XXX XXX XXX

"Serpents fear me, cat's revere me! Serpents fear me, cats revere me! Serpents fear me, cats revere me!" The figure chanted.

The group had no sooner made it out of the forest than a vaguely humanoid figure came stumbling towards them.

"Boss, if I might?" Cal requested.

"Do it." Alexander commanded as his patience was in a somewhat frayed state due to the day's previous events.

"Serpents fear me me cats revere..." The linen wrapped figure began once again.

CRACK!

Cal's trusty firearm Phoenix barked.

A bullet punched through the head of the undead monster before them. He worked the weapon's lever and the spent casing went flying out. He fished another round from a pocket of his brown jacket, inserted it into the breach, and yanked the lever forward.

CRACK!

The creature stopped talking, most likely because Cal's first two shots had obliterate a fair amount of its face.

He kept working his weapon with silent determination until he had emptied a full five rounds into the thing.

At that point the monster collapsed to the ground and disintegrated into a pile of dust.

A gust of wind swept the stuff up and spun it around, reforming it into the shape of a ghostly bird with a human head.

Instantly James Firecat let go of his staff and went racing forward, he tried to pounce on the bird creature but while he was in midair himself it took to the wing and flew off at astounding speed.

James hissed in anger at the departing, whatever it was exactly.

"I know you like chasing birds Kitten, but I don't think you could have hurt that one even if you did get your paws around it." Mirri advised the werecat, gently kicking the staff in his direction so that she didn't have to pick it up herself.

James took the staff to hand once again shaking his head dourly.

"That was no bird, it was that beast's ba." He rumbled his entire body shaking with barely suppressed energy.

"Mummies don't 'baah' that's sheep." Cal abruptly interjected finding this comment a bit much even coming from James.

The redhead turned and glowered at the alchemist.

"Not 'baah' like the sound, ba! It is the portion of a person's soul that represents their physical vitality!" He insisted.

"Is this another of those Bastet things?" Cal suggested, he was a great deal more liberal on the subject of gods than most Lamordians (in so far as was now willing to admit they probably existed, though until one of them gave him amazing law of physics shattering magic powers he didn't really see the need to start worshiping one) but his relationship with all things involving deities was still very much the long finger.

"It does not pertain exclusively to Bastet by any means, but if it simplifies matters for you, yes it is one of those 'Bastet things', as you put it." James muttered, his tone much more biting than normal.

"Either way, until we find a way to catch, capture, or destroy that thing, I think we are unlikely to have seen the last of that monster." James clarified for the sake of the others.

"So it's a particularly resilient zombie, no skin off my nose, it comes back again I shoot, Boss slices, plenty of other options also, one way or another it 'dies' all over again. Maybe third time will be the charm for teaching it not to mess with us." Cal reflected, still unworried by James' predictions.

"We can have this particular theological discussion without needing to stand still while we do it, lets march." Alexander commanded.

XXX XXX XXX

"Well this is awkward." Mirri Catwarrior admitted.

As she did ever night she'd retrieved her coffin from Devi's bag of holding (which couldn't old "objects" that was either alive or sentient) after storing it there every morning.

The group was settling down for the night and she'd laid it out on the ground, and was currently standing by its head, while James stood by the back.

Mirri did not need her coffin to exist, she knew that, but vampires sleeping in coffins was traditional, besides it put an extra layer of security between you and anyone who tried to take advantage of you in your sleep.

If anything, Mirri's coffin was larger than that of most vampires, both as a testament to her own importance, and because of the function she liked it to be able to serve. The function she wasn't quite so sure that she wanted it to be serving tonight.

"I can't comprehend why you approach this matter with such trepidation Miriam, it is something we have done countless times together before." Insisted James.

Mirri glowered at him as no matter how she tried to beg, badger, or berate he now insisted on using her "proper" name instead of the version she preferred.

"Look, I know that you insist that you're you, and that nothing is different...

But, bear with me please, because I know how insane this sounds, I'm still not really sure that you're you at the moment." Mirri admitted as she wasn't sure how much of the werecat standing before her was "James" and how much was "Maahes" at the moment.

"Rule number one, the staff goes in Devi's bag of holding, or someplace else, it doesn't go in the coffin. Holy relics of good gods and I don't get along." Mirri insisted.

James casually tossed aside the staff without a moment's hesitation.

"Do I look like such a fool that I would allow a simple piece of wood, even one dedicated to my mother to come between our love?" He inquired earnestly.

The problem of course was that even when he wasn't holding it, Mirri still felt like that staff was coming between her and James, at least the version of James who she was familiar with.

"Where and how did we meet?" She demanded to know.

"It was in Dementlieu, I was playing a harmonica beneath a tree after opening up a wound on the back of my neck." He answered without a moment's hesitation.

Mirri purposely drew in a very deep breath and then heaved it out as a sigh. That was the correct answer of course, but even hearing it straight from his lips didn't make her feel any more comfortable about their situation.

"Miriam, what foe must I slay, what mountain must I climb, what labor must I complete to prove my love for you is steadfast and true? Let your unbeating heart be eased by the knowledge that I shall not shirk from any task no matter how perilous!" He promised her.

That sounded more like James, the sentiment at least if not the flowery language it was presented in, yet she still couldn't bring herself to say anything.

Now for one of the very few times since they had met Mirri saw what James looked like when he was cross.

Not the sort of battle ready fury he unleashed upon darklords and their minions, simply cross, upset without being angry.

"If you say I am not myself, then give me a chance to bare my veins and soul to you and prove otherwise. If you do not... if you do not, then where do you hope to find sustenance from this night?" James wanted to know.

That finally did the trick.

There, there was that stupid undeniable fundamental sort of demi-human decency that caused him to offer her his neck in the first place.

It should have gotten him killed a very long time ago, and the only reason he hadn't was because he was a monster, and monsters got to make their own rules, even if the rules they wanted were those that society suggested but never lived up to.

He was so concerned about other people that he was willing to let her drink his blood so that she didn't take it from someone else.

Whoever, whatever, "James Maahes Firecat" was, he didn't want to let Mirri's hunger for blood to end up hurting anyone if she just could hurt him instead.

"Okay, you know what, we're doing this, get in the coffin." Mirri insisted.

End Chapter

AN: WEEEE! LOOK AT ME, I'M COMPLETELY CHANGING UP HOW THE MACGUFFIN THIS ADVENTURE IS SUPPOSED TO BE BASED AROUND WORKS! WEEEE!

Well I'm not completely changing it, the MacGuffin **is supposedly to lead to one of the PCs getting possessed by something/something, but the who and why of the possessing are not at all what they're supposed to be in the book. Also in the Adventure Book, we're supposed to be seeing full on possession, one personality supplanting the other, whereas here we're seeing something more like an amalgamation between who James used to be and the spirit of the staff.**

 **Also mark down Florence as having the second level spell animal messenger and the sixth level spell Greater Dispell, at some point I am going to compose an actual list of what she spells she knows and which ones she doesn't.**

 **Also just to clear out what I was saying on one particular point, because you can only loose what you already have, Mirri's eyes will feel "bloody" in the same way that a normal humans would feel "watery" because when vampire's cry (which isn't f**king often as you might suspect) the tears will be made of the predominant liquid in their body.**

 **Also please note Mirri's slapping James is supposed to be more "Third Rock from the Sun" (my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister and my daughter?) then "Roots" and if you don't know the scene I'm thinking about I'll spare you the mental drama by not elaborating.**


	6. Chapter 6

Monster Party Book Four: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Six: I'm what you face when you face in the mirror!

"Do you all understand how importance this plan is?" The shadowy figure asked those gathered before him.

"Not really, you haven't told us WHAT the plan is yet." One of them pointed out before being rather soundly rebuffed by his fellows.

"Of course we understand, the Boss' plans are always important. Likewise, we understand that if we don't do a good job on it, then we'll be taking orders from him rather than you." A much smarter shadowy figure answered.

"That's right, and you won't like the kind of orders he gives." Their leader reflected.

"I hear he makes men dance." One of them whispered.

"What's so bad about dancing?" The same dunderhead as before inquired.

"Nothing, if you don't mind doing it for hours on end until you drop dead." Another hissed back, at which point several began to wonder why they were working with such a fool.

"If you don't think that working directly for the Boss is so bad, maybe you'd like to come with me when I report to him?" Their leader offered.

There was a very long and protracted silence that none dared break.

"That's right. He's the Cat and we're just his paws. Not exactly a fair arrangement, but if life were fair none of us would be here in the first place. Now then, lets get down to business of discussing how the plan is supposed to go down..." Their leader stated calmly.

Then suddenly there was a knock at the door.

"Are we expecting anyone else?" One of the minions inquired.

"We're all already here..." Their leader answered just in time for the knocking to suddenly become much louder and more forceful.

"DESTORY THE PLANS AND RUN!" Their leader screamed.

By the time that the guardsmen of Tristen Hiregaard had managed to batter down the door there was no one left inside.

The armored soldiers had completely encircled the building, but evidently there had been some kind of hidden entrance to an underground tunnel system that its occupants had used to slip through their fingers.

The only thing of any importance they recovered was a mostly burnt piece of parchment that wasn't quite charred to the point of illegibility.

It contained a drawing of a stallion.

XXX XXX XXX

As things turned out, almost as soon as the group approached the outskirts of Castle Faerhaaven they were noticed by some of the local guards.

"You, with the silver hair and the eyepatch!" One of them called out, his voice stuttering slightly as if he couldn't quite believe what he was saying.

Alexander sighed and then turned to face the man, tilting his shoulders slightly, positioning Wolf Claw so that it would easily slide free from its sheath.

"Is there some matter in which I can be of service to you?" He offered with icy politeness.

"Is your name Alexander Diamondclaw?" The guard inquired.

"It would seem my reputation proceeds me." He admitted.

"Prince Othmar had access to some of the swiftest horses in all of Nova Vassa. They mentioned that you simply swam in the ocean that is Nova Vassa. Are you truly surprised?" The guard replied with a touch of pride.

Alexander thought about that for a moment then shrugged dismissively. "In the right conditions a man can outrace a horse, but these clearly weren't those. So what exactly makes me so important that you want to have a talk with me?" Alexander asked patiently.

"Not me, The Captain." The Guard explained.

"Of course. Guess we'll have to work our way up the chain of command as usual." Alexander admitted.

XXX XXX XXX

"Presenting Sir Tristen Hiregaard, current head of the Hiregaard Family, protector of the Borchava Duchy, faithful servant of Iron Faith and Prince Othmar Of Nova Vassa! In the name of the Eternal King, by the will of the Lawgiver show proper deference to him!" Announced the herald before more fanfare was blown.

"Their chain has a lot fewer links than I expected." Cal said the words as softly and with as little movement of his lips as possible.

Once all the pomp and circumstances was completed "The Captain" showed himself to Alexander and his companions stepping out from behind a moth bitten curtain.

"Such high praise is more than I deserve quite honestly." Were his first words.

Luckily this didn't cause his servants to start exclaiming the long list of Sir Tristen's many virtues all over again making sure to add "humility" at the end.

Tristen Hiregaard was a descendant of Romir Hiregaard, of that Mirri was sure since Romir had just become the family's leader when she'd gotten her last book on the history of Nova Vassa. Romir had either lived a very long life (and remained vigorous enough to produce a son very late in it), was Tristen's grandfather, or Tristen Hiregaard was a man upon whom the years laid lightly.

At a rough guess Alexander would page Tristen's age at somewhere in his early fifties, but the kind of "early fifties" that only men of wealth and privilege ever lived to, where they could retain an air of vitality and strength that would shame any peasant in their forties (or sometimes even their thirties).

For one of the handful of richest men in Nova Vassa he was dressed in a surprisingly simple manner, loose black trousers, high black riding boots and a red shirt. His slightly graying black mustache had been waxed and well cared for, but Mirri had made it clear to the group that it'd be hard to find a man in Nova Vassa who didn't support the most dramatic set of lip-whiskers they could produce. By comparison though his hair was still completely black without sign of age.

The only adornments he favored were a yellow scarf embroidered with black and red horses about his neck and a pair of scarves patterned with diagonal bands of red and black tied around either arm. He had large brown eyes, the kind that spoke of a man who had sen a great deal of suffering in his life and while it had left its mark upon him, he had refused to let it harden his heart.

Compared to the legendary throne of the Nova Vassan people that Othmar had lounged upon the room that Tristen greeted them in lacked obvious resting places of any sort, Tristen remained standing the same as his guests. He had also refrained from having the group's weapons peace bonded, only insisting that Cal unload his guns.

"I'm afraid you have me somewhat at a disadvantage... when I was told I was going to be meeting with 'The Captain' I assumed your servant meant the Captain of the Guard. My knowledge of current Nova Vassan social graces is sadly a bit lacking, what is the correct title to address someone who is in line to be the prince, but does not actually hold the position?" Alexander inquired politely.

He also made sure to refrain from mentioning the fact that while Tristen might be "in line" it was unlikely that the line would be doing any moving until Othmar Bolshnik had moved onto his afterlife.

Tristen blushed slightly and waved away Alexander's concerns.

"My proper title is Patriarch, but since you are not from these lands exceptions can be made, speaking of which..." He made a few quick hand motions to a couple of servants who were at the moment hauling a trio of fine chairs into the room.

"I normally prefer that those who meet with me stand as equals, but given that there are women among your ranks, I would be failing in my duties as a host did I not offer them some form of respite." He explained with a soft twinkle in his eye as the servants departed as quickly as they had come.

Florence and Devi took the seats, and while Mirri rather pointedly did not she did lounge against in a somewhat relaxed manner.

"So why 'The Captain' then?" Alexander couldn't help but ask.

"Several years back I was Captain of the Kantora City Guard. It was during that time period when some would say I did more to serve Nova Vassa than I ever have as leader of the Hiregaard family. Chief among my deeds were uncovering the horrific truth behind a godless cult who called themselves the Claws of Sehkmaa." He began.

James looked ready to chip in with a few comments, but Mirri, and Cal very firmly (but also very surreptitiously) made sure he didn't. If what James had to say to an antique dealer was off putting, what Maahes might end up saying to a patriarch would doubtlessly be even worse.

"It was not a pleasant discovery in the least, to realize that a group who proclaimed that they had come to feed the hungry and help the needy were in truth nothing but a front for vices beyond measure.

I personally saw to the mater after making this discovery... and they were all suitably punished. All, except their leader Malken. If... if I could have been stronger and faster... if I could have discovered some way to deal with Malken as well, Nova Vassa would be a happier place today.

Alas, he escaped, and now his name or some version of it often seems to be on the lips of every wronger doer in the land.

That is why I allow them to call me The Captain even though I resigned the post years ago. It is because I feel the title is still accurate, just as my time then was defined by my struggle against Malken... I have dedicated what remains of my life to the struggle against the vice and corruption Malken spread like a disease which attacked the soul rather than the body." Tristen explained, his face seeming to age ten or twenty years as he spoke.

Then it faded or at least became less prominent as he focused his eyes carefully on Alexander.

"I'm sorry, I didn't intend to drag you into my unpleasant past when I brought you here to have a meeting about the future." Tristen apologized.

Alexander took a deep breath of his own, and then gave one of the most meaningful "casual" shoulder shrugs imaginable.

"Be at ease Patriarch Hiregaard, who can possibly speak of the future with any wisdom unless they understand the past?" The silver haired man responded.

There was a soft light in Tristen's dark eyes.

"You are sadly all too correct. Still, the 'past' relating to why I brought you here is luckily simple enough.

Much of the wealth of the Hiregaard family comes from our quarry in the Koshka Bluffs. A few weeks ago, it seemed that this might be the most profitable year the Lawgiver had blessed my family with in a long time thanks to a strange bounty the bluffs were offering up.

There were small simple things at first, half broken ceramic cat statues I believe. A few of them were intact though, and they looked to be ancient beyond belief, dating back to the days before The Lawgiver's Iron Faith came to this land.

I at once informed Prince Othmar of the fact, but he assured me that I and my servants have been far to loyal to him to allow a few cat statues to make him think we were heretics. So, I decided that those who worked the bluffs could keep the statues as harmless curiosities, rewards for their hard work.

Still, as more of them showed up I assigned soldiers to carefully inspect the workers leaving the bluffs so that none of them attempted to spirit off anything truly valuable. The workers at the bluffs soon discovered two items of great magical power, one of them was a shield the other was a staff.

A staff that I sent to Prince Othmar along with other tribute as a share of my family's new found prosperity." Tristen pointed out his eyes focusing keenly on the staff James was holding.

"Othmar gave us the staff in question as payment for helping deal with the Briarweed Bandits." Alexander promptly explained, well aware that James' possession of the staff could easily be taken in the wrong light.

Tristen softened slightly and sighed once again.

"After those finds though, then came the accidents. There were always accidents of course, but now, there have never been so many of them in such a short time span. Not just rock falls, workers slipping from scaffolding, but also people being mauled to death by plains cats, and worse of all, five men whose bodies were battered beyond recognition. Their corpses were all marked with a strange rot and the bodies were burned as a precaution." Tristen explained.

"What color was the rot?" Mirri cut in.

"I didn't think to ask and the bodies had already been burned by the time I heard report." Tristen answered.

"I'll lay good money it was yellow and purple." Mirri whispered in her companions ear.

"As these 'accidents' keep piling up, work keeps slowing down, and slower work means less product to sell and thus less money.

I have always prided myself on the fact that the Hiregaard family requires a lower tax rate than any of the other four families, but that does not make me blind to the realities of the world around me. I can get by with a castle that is a touch downtrodden, but soldiers and guardsmen need to have dependable paymasters, otherwise they'll be no better than the brigands and bandits we expect them to protect the people from in the first place. I need someone to go to the bluffs, find out what is wrong, and put a stop to it." Tristen concluded.

"So you think that we could be those people?" Alexander added just to put a fine point on the matter.

Tristen looked him over again slowly.

"Othmar said that you did as fine a job as could be expected from foreigners. He is the ruler of Nova Vassa and so his standards must be the most exacting in all of Nova Vassa at telling right from wrong and good from evil.

The words he spoke of you were why I wanted this meeting, and I have ever believed that if you want to be truly impressed, you must give someone a chance.

For my skill at being stern without being harsh, the Lawgiver has rewarded me with many fine servants, it is how I met Sigfrid after all..." Tristen Hiregaard turned as if intending to draw attention to someone, a person who was not in the room.

"Sigfrid..." He muttered to himself a moment later in pained tones.

"A fallen friend?" Alexander's voice was a tender whisper.

Tristen's eyes grew slightly bleary as he nodded in agreement.

"A casualty from my war with Malken. Illness and madness claimed my first wife, but Malken claimed the son she gave me and my dear friend Sigfrid Skolsson who I loved like a brother." Tristen admitted, and with those words it became astoundingly clear that while the guillotine sharp hands of time have been kind to Tristen Hiregaard's body, how they treated his soul were another matter entirely.

"Few things make the loss of a boon companion worse than the knowledge that they remain unavenged. One of those things is when we worry that it would be all but impossible to avenge them. Perhaps after we deal with this more urgent matter at the bluffs we could give you a hand with Malken as well?" Alexander offered in commiseration.

Tristen's face did not look sorrowful anymore, instead it simply looked blank, as if he was dead to the world.

"Malken is not as easy to track down. It's said he has a enough lairs in Nova Vassa that he can spend each night in a different one. I worry that I would have you racing hither and yon across Nova Vassa with nothing to show for it and no way to properly pay you.

For this task payment at least comes easier enough, doubtless there is some great evil at the heart of the Koshka Bluffs, but just as surely there remain more magical artifacts that have yet to be found. I will gladly give you whatever examples of the later you find if you will rid me of the former." Tristen declared.

"You said that it was 'war' between you and Malken. Do you think that all these accidents might have something to do with him? After all, wars aren't just won on the front lines, if the Koshka Bluffs are a source of great wealth for you and your family, then disrupting them disrupts your wealth, and thus disrupt your ability to fight Malken." Alexander pointed out.

Tristen shook his head sternly.

"It has been my great displeasure to have grown to know Malken very well over the years, this... it is not his style.

He is fond of enough and more of cats, but why would he harass my workers when instead he might simply pilfer the stone on its way to market, both robbing me and enriching himself at the same time? Also if I truly had to, I could raise taxes, meaning that while he might create more misery he would not reduce my capabilities when it came to fighting him. Malken is a fiend, but he is no fool." Tristen warned them.

"You said there was a shield also, found form the same general region as the staff?" Mirri brought the topic of conversation back around to the item in question since no one else seemed about to.

This finally managed to snap Tristen out of his brooding intensity and he nodded slowly in agreement.

"Yes, and if it will help you resolve the matter I'll be only too glad to show it to you. Both my court priestess Sofya and myself came to the same conclusion. it was magic and powerfully so. I have no idea what it does, but if you need it you are welcome to it." Tristen offered.

"Well lets start by taking a look at it, best to take these things one small step at a time." Alexander suggested.

XXX XXX XXX

Tristen lead the group into his trophy room, (located inside one of the tallest towers in his castle) and his eyes fell upon one chest in particular. It was a chest that currently had two occupants laying flat out upon it.

"Forgive the cats, I know they're rather out of fashion at the moment, but my first wife was quite fond of them, and they grew on me over the years. If nothing else, they're cheaper to keep around than full time rat catchers." Tristen explained as he picked up one of the sleeping animals and lifted it off the treasure chest.

The animal took this with surprising grace purring happily in Tristen's hands. Then producing a key from a pocket he unlocked the chest, and withdrew a single object from it.

He laid it flat on the ground so that the group could gather around and look it over at their leisure.

It was a shield sure enough, seemingly made of brass. Embossed on its face around the rim were a series of nine cats. Five of them were fast asleep, but the other four stood erect, one paw raised as if to strike.

The group didn't get very long to study the shield, because James was only able to hold himself back for a handful of seconds.

Then he pounced forward, landed atop the shield and began to try to twist his entire body around it. His breath became heavy and every time he exhaled there was a "chuffing" sound.

It was as if James trying to purr, and only failing because his body couldn't possibly produce those particular sounds at the moment.

Tristen Hiregaard twisted his head to the side and gazed at this particular event with an understandable amount of confusion.

"When our friend here came in contact with the magic staff that your workers found it insorcised some kind of ancient spirit into him and now he believes that he's the son of an ancient cat creature." Devi explained in a completely blase tone of voice, as if this sort of bizarre event happened every other day.

Tristen blinked a few times taking it in before deciding to stay safely neutral on the whole matter.

"I'm sorry to hear that the staff has created problems for you. I and some of my servants along with the worker who originally found it all handled it without any kinds of precautions and yet suffered no such strange maladies." He promised them.

"We don't blame you." Mirri replied, a little shocked to discover that she actually meant it.

There was terrible earnesty about Tristen Hiregaard, it was an almost James-like quality, blaming him for something he had no control over was the sort of evil that wasn't even amusing in it's perversity.

"Given how... enthralled our companion is with the shield it probably would be for the best if we take it with us. Devi see if you can get it out form under him and store it in the Bag of Holding." Alexander decided.

After a fair amount of coxing from Mirri James reluctantly parted ways with the shield and allowed it to be deposited inside the group's bag of holding.

XXX XXX XX

"Serpents fear me, cats revere me! Give me back my shield give me back my staff!" A creature that might have once been human appeared before them as they left the trophy room.

How it had reached this place was hard to say, but it was here and it was advancing on them menacingly.

"Guess it's my turn." Mirri reflected as she prepared to meet the monster in combat. Before battle could be joined however, Tristen Hiregaard suddenly placed himself between the two.

"Please my lady, what kind of host would I be if I allowed a woman who I had brought within my home to be forced to fight while I still drew breath? Allow me." Tristen insisted.

There was a sparkle in his eye again, just like when he'd ordered the chairs, it somehow made Tristen look as young as Alexander Diamondclaw, as if twenty years or more had just melted from his hansom and now playfully confident face.

"If you really insist..." She agreed while doing a quick inspection of their "hosts" outfit, Tristen had worn no noticeable weapons to his meeting with the group, the most he could have concealed were a few daggers.

There was no time for further argument, the beast was almost upon them.

Tristen turned to face the monster, and made a few quick hand motions as he whispered strange words.

Tristen's guests felt a strange chill in the air, the effect on the patriarch's foe was a bit more pronounced.

The monster began to take another creaking step forward, but could not bring its leg properly into position to catch itself. It fell, and when it did it's entire body shattered into countless tiny shards of frozen ice upon the floor.

A ghostly birdlike figure with a human head took flight from what was left of the monster.

Tristen watched it depart and then brushed his bare hands against one another in a show of contentment.

"I protect Castle Faerhaaven and those within with all my power, protection that none should take lightly." Tristen declared proudly.

Mirri had a faraway look in her eyes.

"That looked a lot like magic. Not the priestly kind of magic either..." She pointed out, as if not quite able to believe what she'd seen.

Tristen nodded sagely.

Then he paused for a moment before explaining further.

"I see that while you are foreigners you know at least some of Nova Vassa's ways.

When I was fifteen years old my father committed suicide, his body was scarcely cold in the ground before I discovered that I had been touched by the foul hand of Mytteri.

I was granted a rare privilege though, the ruler of Nova Vassa at the time, Prince Kethmaar of the Bolshnik family was only a few years my senior and we had been friends growing up. From his position as head of the Iron Faith he decreed that my magic was to be completely ignored unless I used it for evil.

So, I did what I could to study my strange curse, and the little magics I've mastered have proven quite useful at times." Tristen explained.

Mirri said nothing, either because she realized it was the wise thing to do at the moment or she honestly couldn't think of any sort of comment to make.

XXX XXX XX

"So what did you think of Sir Tristen Hiregaard?" Cal Wright asked when the group set out for the bluffs after the finest meal that Castle Faerhaaven's cooks could provide.

It might already be starting to get dark, but if any of the local bandits or wildlife decided to attack the group then they'd be surprised just how keen their senses could prove.

In order to pass the time the alchemist figured he could get an amusing rant or two our of the vampire by continuing to needle her about the state of her nation's nobility.

He wasn't disappointed either.

"What gelding!" Mirri snickered.

"Sir Tristen High-Regard, the last, no, the only honest man in Nova Vassa! Witness my valiant and fruitless struggle to not notice how the rest of my countrymen are busy undoing every single good deed I do!" Mirri chortled mispronouncing the man's name on purpose.

While she might be above verbally abusing the man to his face, insulting him behind her back was was another matter entirely.

"I don't know why he keeps those mousers around his castle, he's all horse and not cat!" She added with complete and total certainty.

XXX XXX XXX

Tristen Hiregaard had met with some lovely ladies today, that was good. There might be some new pieces entering onto the board, that was even better. Best of all, whatever was causing problems at the Koshka Bluffs would soon be eliminated.

The white haired man took a moment to examine himself in the mirror, his outfit was completely disheveled and his hair wild... exactly the way he liked it.

Lust always came easily to him, but the image he now called to mind fanned the flames still further. Those dementedly bewitching red eyes, that black and white hair, those high cheekbones, that angular chin!

She had to be of Nova Vaasan stock, she just had to be.

She carried herself with such a regal air, and yet she deemed to spend time with common adventurers. What shameless flouting of the Lawgiver's tenants, harlots in dance halls showed more self restraint, at least they had the excuse of their base-born birth to explain away their sins, she wore hers with pride like a fine scarf!

What delightful deviancy!

Even her name was exactly as it should be for a 'lady' of her nature...

"Catwarrior." The man whispered to himself, and the words sent a shiver of delight up his spine.

Some fools might stand by their trusty steeds, but those who understood the way the world really worked, they rode upon cats!

He was certain that she knew, how could she not?

She must have intended it, that couldn't have been her actual birth name, no it was clearly one she had chosen for herself. What cheek! She had turned her name itself into a bellow of defiance, a fist shaken in rage against all that was proper and orderly in the world!

To say nothing of her style of dress!

The image of those legs concealed (though not very well of course) beneath no dress or skirt but masculine trousers (and not even the baggy Nova Vassan style either) was extremely pleasing to say the least.

They were right shape, but the movements had a strange exotic air to them, a feline prowl rather than the traditional rolling gate of men and women alike in Nova Vaasa. It must have been a long time indeed since she had last ridden, well, he would give her a ride to say the least!

Of that there could be no doubt, and who knew, she was so enticing that he might even be able to bring himself not to wring her pretty little neck once he was done, so long as she was receptive and agreeable throughout.

Maybe she would be after all, he'd seen the way that she'd been fawning over the red haired youth with a face as bare as a maiden in waiting, did she seek such companions just to further spit in the eye of all that was considered right and just?

How could he not feel some warped form of respect for her, how could he not crave her with every inch of his loins? In this land of masks and duplicity she had cast aside all pretense of proper nobility leaving behind naught but contempt and comeliness.

She was without respect for the church or law, she was without shame, she was without doubt the most perfect women Tristen had ever been kind enough to bring to his attention!

Sadly, he simply couldn't afford to do anything that might jeopardize their mission, something out there was messing with his control of the cats, and if he didn't control his four legged spies, then he didn't control Nova Vassa. A knife at a man's throat would make him obey, but only for as long as you could keep it there. Information that made a man fear for his life, that you could hold over his head without even needing to lift a finger!

No, for the moment as strange as it might sound, he and Tristen were in perfect agreement (though of course Tristen didn't know it) that the matter at Koshka Bluffs needed to settled, and permanently.

So, he would be... patient... That word also sent a shiver through his body though this time it was one of revulsion.

He would have to wait for her to return to him and then he would truly lay bare before her all the vice and venality of Nova Vaasa, just as she would bare her flesh to him either by choice or by force.

For now... for now... for now he slipped a dark cloak around himself tightly so as to better hide his twisted appearance. With the cloak drawn up tight around him, he seemed a figure more of shadow than of flesh.

"Purrrfect." He trilled to himself.

For he was Malken, the true ruler of Nova Vaasa, and tonight would strangle the first red haired man he could get his hands around.

FN: To start with, I'm sorry about the chapter song title, I know it's not perfect, but I really, really couldn't resist using it in this case, will explain why in author commentary for the story.

Anyway, this chapter is an odd duck.

I'm doing something here that I don't normally do, I'm explicitly casting a light on the fact that Nova Vassa (and Ravenloft itself) is bigger than any single party of adventures.

Islands of Terror like Vorostokov have so few people/are small enough that one group of people actually can come in and clean up most of their problems (since most of their problems for that nation are one simple obvious dictator and the fact that nobody has seen spring in years because of the curse of said dictator) inside a month.

Nova Vassa on the other hand, is comparatively huge and it's problems are not clear cut, despite Mirri's conviction, Prince Othmar is only a symptom of the nation's problems and not the actual cause. There is simply more going wrong with the nation than any single group of adventures who don't plan to live there and probably take over the entire place so it can be reformed from the top down could possibly solve.

Our heroes are good, but they aren't that good.

So what I'm saying, is that I'm including stuff that has no dramatic purpose to the story, but none the less SHOULD be a part of this story, because it helps paint an accurate depiction of the land (or at least MY VIEW of the land) in question.

I'm throwing this out there now so at least you know I'm "screwing up" on purpose and if you "see unresolved threads" when this entire story is told, you can know in advance I never intended to follow up on them in the first place.

Onto more conventional matters, much of Ravenloft comes without a direct pronunciation guide, but there are audio books I've been picking up recently In this case/this book you may be interested to know that Tristen's last name is pronounced "Hire Guard" or at least that's the best way I can describe it based on my audio book version of Enemy Within.

Also if you didn't get the expression at the start it's been said that a horse is the ship upon which one sails the "seas" of Nova Vassa. Since the group prefers to walk, they're "swimming" by comparison and moving slower than those who ride/"sail" instead.

Also that shield, that stupid stupid shield. It's called The Shield of Life Restoration, and I mean, I like the idea, it's interesting, but it has effectively NO BEARING UPON THE STORY, it's not even a maguffin, it is just a widget, or whatever you call a cool thing that shows up but isn't needed to save the heroes/drive the plot.

It has two basic magical powers, if you lay it on a dead person and say the word "Bast" then the person instantly comes back to life with full hit points no "resurrection sickness" of any kind and one of the cats currently depicted as being awake is now depicted as being asleep, if you couldn't guess this ability stops working once all nine cats are shown as being asleep and there's no way to "recharge it" listed in the adventure book.

The other ability is that to cats, the shield smells like catnip. It also directly says that "larger felines can save vs. spell with a +2 bonus to avoid this affect" ("this affect" being a desire to rub themselves up against it and purr their hearts out) now I'm not sure if the shield should affect werecats in human form, but given that Maahes is also riding around in James' head, yeah he didn't really have a chance of not being effected by the shield. Luckily Tristen's such a kind host that he's not going to make an issue out of it.

Next up, I'm going to break one of those rules of writing and do some "telling" at the moment. The reason that I'm doing the telling though is because this is something that honestly I'm not sure can be/I'm not sure I'm a good enough writer to be able to "show" convincing thoroughly in story text alone.

As you doubtlessly know there are a great many different possible styles of persuasion. Mirri both because of her personality and her vampire powers tends to take the the most direct approach. She'll walk into the room, look you right in the eyes, convince you that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and that you should feel honored to have her attention for any length of time, so why shouldn't you repay that honor by telling her a few of your secrets?

On the other hand, Alexander takes a much more subtle approach.

Lets talk about ciphers. Not as in terminology related to code breaking, or mathematics, but as in the term sometimes applies to characters.

A "cipher" is something of no importance, no substance, no value. Alex with his stand that words are ultimately meaningless compared to actions, is very good at using his high charisma score (and skill points in diplomacy) to be a cipher.

Despite how flamboyant his overall appearance (eye patch, long odd colored haired) when Alex wants to, he can project whatever sort of a personality he expects who he is talking to will want to see. This has to do with body language, accent, and other minor things that are very hard to display in text alone.

In most situations, the very best person/personality to reflect back at the person you're talking to, is the person you're talking to. Because the more of themselves they see in you, the more doing anything bad to you would feel like doing something bad to themselves and the more trusting you simply feels like trusting themselves.

Honestly, this was not something I was conscious of before I wrote this chapter, but it is present in the previous chapters/books if you know what to look for. In book one when he's talking to Doctor Fran Alex makes a comparison between his sword and a surgeon's scalpel.

In the second book when he first meets Mikhail he points out how they evidently both grew up hearing the exact same monster stories.

He doesn't get a chance to do it in book three, but that's because it's Cal's time to shine and trying to use Alexander's charm to get the exact information that Cal wants would turn into a game of Telephone (purple monkey dishwasher) so best to just let Cal go right at it.

He didn't do it with Othmar, but that's because Alexander could tell that Othmar is not the kind of person who would like to run into another version of himself, he'd want to make sure that any other conniving bastards who are intent on backstabbing their way to the top get promptly murdered because he's at the top and wants to stay there.

Which is why instead Alex projects himself as a semi-foppish sell sword with no major desires beyond figuring out where his next meal is going to come from, certainly not the kind of person who would concoct an scheme of the magnitude needed to challenge the Prince of Nova Vassa.

In this chapter with Tristen he's right back to doing it again though, he's projecting himself as an old soldier who knows what it is like to spend your entire life fighting a war that can never truly be won, but refusing to take the easy way out and simply surrender.

Now, how much (if any) of this is true, that's completely open to interpretation since I'm going to continue to slowly but surely reveal portions and tidbits of Alex's back-story.

Moving on from that, contrary to Mirri's opinion the true natural sport of Nova Vassa is the retcon, because just about every single source book or similar we get on Nova Vassa typically contains several retcons to the information that came before it.

At this point, I've decided that there's no point in trying to fight fate, and the version of Nova Vassa being presented here is indeed a cobbled together hodge podge of various sources.

In theory ALL of "Enemy Within" got overwritten by the stuff in Gazetteer V (5) which established facts like the Importance of the Iron Faith in Nova Vassa, Tristen and Malken's latest back story, and also in Enemy Within Nova Vassa was a straight up monarchy while in The Awakening (which came out the same year so I'm not going to bother to do the exact dumpster diving research to figure out which of those came first, though Enemy Within was in February so probably it) the nation has the five year cycle thing which Othmar is breaking.

So what come from where you might be asking?

Well from Enemy Within I liked the idea of Tristen being an arcane magic user, it is hard to say with perfect certainty if he's a wizard or a sorcerer from the text, but given that we never see him preparing spells each morning I'm going to say sorcerer. Honestly, that just makes the most sense given his "build" anyway because Tristen's highest stat (through all his various write ups) has always been Charisma.

Also his power level is more or less portrayed correctly based on that book, in the novel he knows how to teleport (but judging from context not without error) so he's probably got fifth level spells. Against the weird creature the group runs into he uses the fifth level spell "Cone of Cold" to defeat it.

Likewise, him having a wife who he loved and loved him back, and a son they had together, comes from Enemy Within. In the novel that son gets killed, so I'm going to say that after that incident happened, Tristen ended up getting into what was for him a loveless marriage (the other woman loves him but he doesn't love her/his mind is elsewhere) so that he could sire some new heirs for his family to keep the line of succession clear.

I liked Tristen being a mage, but I'm sure some of you (much like Mirri did) will point out, using arcane magic in Nova Vassa is looked on only slightly better than it is in Tepest (where it will probably get you burned at the stake as a Fey) so isn't that problematic?

Well no.

Because it is important to remember, The Iron Faith of Nova Vassa is no match for the Golden Rule of Nova Vassa, he with the gold makes the rules.

The Prince of the Nova Vassa is always the head of the Church, and while the Iron Faith itself is Lawful Evil, it tends to be headed by a fair number of Neutral Evil Princes (like Othmar) who are always ready to hand out exceptions to "Holy Writ" if it benefits them in the end.

Originally Kethmaar did spare Tristen's life out of friendship between them, but since then he's been kept alive because every Prince knew that they could count on Tristen to be utterly reliable because if he wasn't, one simple order from them would have the Lawgiver's followers beating down the doors of Castle Faerhaaven to arrest him for the blasphemy of being an arcane magic user.

This in turn feeds back into why Tristen is so super loyal to Othmar even though he's smart enough to see that Othmar is clearly doing what's best for Othmar rather than Nova Vassa (and to a degree few previous Princes ever had) because Othmar can make the remainder of Tristen's life very short and painful (or long and painful) on a whim.

That's the wonderful thing about Nova Vassa, sometimes if you take two facts that shouldn't make any sense and mash them together they end up fitting together all but perfectly!

So Tristen, as I'm depicting him here he's a Lawful Neutral who would like to be Lawful Good, but being bound up in a Lawful Evil system, he can't obey the system while being LG.

He's also "just a bit off" all things considered.

Keeping a fair number of cats around your home is an odd habit these days in Nova Vassa (see first chapter and remember nobody wants to be accused of cat worship) but Enemy Within directly mentions that in one of the paintings Tristen has of his first wife she's sitting down with a cat in her lap, so I assume she liked them and they probably grew on Tristen.

Castle Faerhaaven also looks rather dilapidated, especially compared to the castle's of any of the other four families.

Tristen makes every effort he can to be nice, but he also has all these little odd eccentricities that leave him just slightly out of step with Nova Vassa (like the entire trying to be nice thing for one) which if you look closely enough kind of makes you wonder.

Mirri who is going to be like a dog with a bone when it comes to her theory about Othmar being the darklord because of the ways in which he is disrespecting Nova Vassa's history (because its history is the only part of the nation that she cares about) doesn't bother to. On the other hand one can also make a reasonable argument that she's also quite heavily focused on the issues relating to James and Maahes at the moment so she isn't bothering to check if every person she meets might possibly be a darklord.

Which is why she doesn't even suspect that all those little eccentricities of Tristen's, all those little ways he isn't quite at home at Nova Vassa, might eventually reach a boiling point, and then you get Malken.

Oh Malken.

First of all Malken's interest in Mirri not just part of some sort of bizarre running gag where darklords keep showing an interest in her. It's because A: she has the highest charisma of all the female members of the party, and even more importantly B: if you take a good look at Mirri and Malken's personalities/philosophies, oh yeah there's more than a little overlap.

Malken's an interesting character if only because while he lacks some of their signature powers (he can't close the domain borders, and if you go by the Gazetteer he has practically no powers at all, I prefer the Enemy Within version who the ability to control cats (I don't like his ability/he does not have it in my continuity the ability to control certain kinds of mindless undead, it doesn't fit his theme) and also has access to Tristen's magic) he's much more self aware than most Darklords are, if only because of the fact that's he knows he's evil, and he makes no bones about it.

He knows that he's what wrong with Nova Vassa.

He doesn't try to hide behind "I did/am doing what I had/have to do" (hey Azalin and Elena) or "I was betrayed by all who I trusted and was justified taking revenge" (hey Soth) or "I'm the Lord of the realm, if I do it's not illegal/wrong" (hey Strahd) or "I'm just a servant of my god" (hey Yagno, also technically to a certain degree hey Alfred), or even "I just want to be human is that so wrong" (hey Adam and Maligno), Malken chose to be evil because to him its more fun/more rewarding than being good.

If he wasn't tied up in the body of someone determined to undo all his evils, there's no way that Malken could ever be a darklord because on his own he's not a complex enough character to be one.

The flatness of his motivation is actually the perfect reason WHY he works in this case though, he needs to lack have his own body, needs to have Tristen around just as much as on some awkward subconscious level Tristen needs Malken to act as his Id made flesh in order to not be driven crazy by the knowledge that he is the only honest well meaning person in a position of power to be found in all of Nova Vassa. After all, the issue of how evil everyone else is pales in comparison to the problem of what your own inner demon does every time he gets a chance to come out in play.

In fact, honestly I think Malken probably actively knows that he needs/wants Tristen to be around, for the same reason that the Joker tends to loose his s**t (more so than normal) whenever a rumor comes up that somebody else might have killed Batman.

Malken is all malice and hatred and evil, yet how can he properly define himself as evil if there is no good to oppose him?

That's probably part of Malken's curse also, a sort of reverse of the one that Inza suffers from in Sithicus, Inza wants everyone to be as evil as she is and wants there to be no good in the world so she's cursed by a domain with the White Rose a living embodiment of purity and goodness (also possibly some some of reincarnation/figment of an idealized Soth but lets not get into that right not).

Malken on the other hands wants to start from a position of him being the only evil person in the world, so that he can have the fun of properly "winning" by corrupting and killing off all who oppose him. Malken's problem is that he's cursed with a domain where everyone is already evil and in some ways he's barely making things any way worse than they already were. Next to a horribly repressive system of entrenched power among the nobles which operate hand in hand with an equally repressive religion overseeing everyone, how much worse can one single criminal really make things?

Becoming the head crime-lord of Nova Vassa was honestly probably "just too easy" for Malken, because the crime was already there he just had to organize it/insert himself at the topmost rung of the criminal ladder in the places where it had already been organized.

As much as Malken loves being both chaotic and being evil, I think he loves being chaotic more, to the point that if some how Malken got full control of the body he and Tristen currently have a timeshare arrangement for, and Tristen Hiregaard ceased to exist... Malken would find himself in the darker Ravenloft equivalent of the second act of Megamind, what's the point of being a villain with no hero to oppose him?

If he couldn't find a new hero, Malken might decide that the only thing to do is burn his entire criminal empire to the ground (possibly literally) and become one of those dashing highwayman types who steals from the rich and gives to the poor (Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore galloping through the sward, Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, and his horse Concorde!) (keeping enough for himself to finance more wide spread revolutionary activity), just so that he could piss off Othmar (and the rest of the ruling Nova Vassa power structure) enough to make him hate Malken the way that Tristen currently does.

Life is a game to Malken, but it most certainly isn't solitaire, it is only fun if he has someone to play against.

There can be wonderful complexity in Malken's simpleness as strange as that may sound.

Also when Mirri speaks about Tristen being "All horse and no cat" she's referring to the Rider's Dilemma, a parable that's rather popular in Nova Vassa.

The short hand version of it is "horses are a symbol for doing what's right and honorable, cats are a symbol for doing whatever the f**k you want and damn the consequences."

In theory it should only be a "fairly recent" saying that actually should have only come about after Mirri read her last history book on Nova Vassa, but in my version of Nova Vassa's history it has been around long enough that it got taught to Mirri growing up.

That sort of makes sense after all, in my view of how Nova Vassa should be, that saying is part of the reason why Malken calls himself "Malken" (because it's another word for "cat") and not just because it is a reference to the tavern his first victim had been working at shortly beforehand, otherwise I suppose we should all be very grateful that he decide to strike first at "The Clever Gray Malken" and not "The Merry Mermaid", "The Nag's Head" or the "The Prancing Unicorn".


	7. Chapter 7

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Seven: We slip through the streets while everyone sleeps getting bigger and sleeker and wider and brighter

"Who in the name of the Lawgiver are you?" Demanded a soldier in slightly beaten armor as the group approached the Koshka Bluffs.

Alexander opened his mouth to answer when suddenly Cal held up a finger.

"Boss, if I may?" The alchemist suggested.

Alexander shot a preemptive look at James, and then one at Cal.

"If you really think it'll be so wonderful, go right ahead, but don't waste too much time." He warned the alchemist.

Cal nodded and then stepped forward, smiling broadly.

"You know, I want you to keep that expression you're wearing right now fixed very clearly in you mind. Now then... Devi, why don't you show this fine gentleman exactly who we are?" He suggested.

Devi Skye stepped forward and the guard recoiled slightly, clearly having no intentions of taking anything that an elf had to offer him.

She reached into her bag of holding an held out a scroll that was bound up and closed with a very fine seal, the seal of the Hiregaard family.

Only laying eyes upon the seal of the family to which he had sworn allegiance could bring the man to take the scroll, and open it. What he found waiting for him a letter that Sir Tristen Hiregaard had written for the group while sharing dinner with them last night.

"The six standing before you have already done a great service for Prince Othmar and Nova Vassa. For that reason I have placed my trust in them to help resolve the issue at the Koshka Bluffs. Show them the same loyalty you would me, and remember; masters in the next world can be slaves in this one, just as easily as slaves in the next world can momentarily be masters, it all depends upon how well they do their duty. -Sir Tristen Hiregaard." Was all it said.

What went unsaid was quite obvious though, Tristen Hiregaard was an arcane magic user, when he died he would be sent to the Hell of Slaves. Devi Skye was an elf, so would she. That still didn't mean their orders could be blithely disregarded in the mortal world.

The guard paled for a moment, then his face began to deepen into an interesting mix between the green of revulsion and red of anger.

Eventually he regained control and his face slowly started to show something bordering on genuine relief.

"I see... well... just last night I and the others were wishing that Sir Tristen would reinforce us, clearly the Lawgiver provides for those who obey his tenants." The guard replied.

He must have wanted them very badly because he seemed to be finding some comfort in the sight of the group now, even if his 'reinforcements' had taken a form that the guard never would have expected.

"My name is Alexander Diamondclaw, this woman with the blond hair is Florence Bastien." Alexander explained, very pointedly not mentioning the fact that Florence's skin had a rather greenish tint to it.

The guard noticed it of course, but once you had decided that you were going to take orders from an elf, no point in objecting to a dryad, if he even recognized what she was.

"The woman with black hair is Mirri Catwarrior, and her companion is James Firecat." Alexander continued.

"Blessings of Bastet be upon you fellow guardian." James declared cheerfully even though his words made the guard just about ready to jump out of his skin.

"Yep we're not just foreigners we're foreign heretics as you might expect. Do kindly remember the letter though." Mirri pointed out.

She was certain that the more "Maahesian" aspects of James' personality would quite promptly get in trouble with true believers in the Lawgiver.

Luckily, it was a lot easier to find people in Nova Vassa who believed in the law (especially the unspoken one about how obeying even the strangest orders without question was how you got ahead in life, or at least didn't fall behind) than 'truly' believed in the Lawgiver.

In short, so long as the group had the favor of the rich and powerful, the Iron Faith couldn't touch them with them a ten foot poll, let alone an axehead, noose or one of their holy spears.

"I'm Cal Wright, and you've already met Devi Skye. You are?" Cal inquired, wanting to wrap up introductions while the day was still fairly fresh.

"Gunnar Erickson. I'll take you to see Sir Jiscaard, he's the knight Sir Tristen has placed in charge of this area." Gunnar explained.

XXX XXX XXX

Sir Jiscaard was in his late twenties with black hair, a fine black mustache, and armor that was much better taken care of than his subordinate's. What wasn't different about him was the way that he reacted to Tristen's Hiregaard's letter.

If anything, his emotions were even easier to watch bounce back and forth as his eyes did the same thing between the group and the letter they had presented him with. When he eventually got himself under control and managed to resist an obvious impulse to rip the letter to shreds and pretend he'd never seen it, he gave Alexander a restrained nod.

"Well, you're here. So long as that's the case, you might as well make yourselves useful. I suppose having you lot around might have some advantages. You're proof that Sir Tristen commands the respect of more than just ordinary men. If you want to be really useful you could bring me a few plains cat pelts." The knight suggested.

James looked back and forth in slight confusion.

"Could you point us in the direction of the nearest market where we might procure such items?" He inquired.

For a moment it looked like only the fact that Sir Jiscaard was wearing heavy mail gauntlets kept him from slamming a hand against his face.

"I don't mean buy them, I mean kill the bloody beasts!" The knight blustered in irritation.

Either the force of of the black haired man's anger, or the shock of realizing that Sir Jiscaard was suggesting he be about killing his fellow felines of any kind, (or even more likely, a combination of both) was enough to make James jerk backward in surprise.

"It's not normally like this, most of the time they'll leave you alone so long as you don't get blind stinking drunk and decide to go off for a midnight walk by yourself. Now however, now I've got to assign my soldiers to stand guard in groups of three just to keep the cats at bay!

Any sign of weakness, they'll be on you in an instant!" Jiscaard warned them.

A moment later there was a horrific scream, the kind of sound you normally only heard shortly after a woman was surprised in a dark alley.

James immediately began to grip his staff tightly, looking ready to throw himself into the fray as soon as he was certain in which direction the foe lay.

Four other members of the group likewise began to reach for their own weapons, but Mirri and Jiscaard were more or less nonplussed.

"See what I mean?" Jiscaard groaned, more in irritation than actual fear or anger.

"Plains cats normally hunt at night, cause their fur is black as Mytteri's heart. Now though, I'm not even sure if they're hunting, maybe they're just watching, and they want us to know they're watching. Maybe I just need more sleep, but I'd swear I've fought bandits who were less coordinated than those cats!" Jiscaard admitted.

"A cat made that sound?" Cal gasped, still having trouble believing it.

"Yep, it's not too too hard to tell from an actual woman's scream once you know get the hang of it." Mirri confirmed, though she didn't offer any direct advice on how to accomplish that particular trick.

"Over the years the mewing of a housecat has more and more come to resemble the crying of a child, I suspect this is a rather less pleasant version of the same principle." James suggested.

"Like I was saying make yourselves at home, aside from the possibility of having part of the bluffs come loose and crush you like a bug, falling off a ladder, or being eaten by a plains cat things aren't too bad. At the very least the closest thing any of the workers have to weapons are daggers and pickaxes so you shouldn't have much to fear from them." Jiscaard informed the group.

XXX XXX XXX

Indeed the first day did pass in a relatively dull and unimpressive fashion.

There was one brief 'exciting' moment when a ladder snapped and fell over with unpleasant (if entirely mundane) results for the worker who had been using it.

Florence spent much of the rest of the day surreptitiously (knowing that her magic (having nothing to do with the Lawgiver) would not be looked fondly upon in Nova Vassa) doing what she could to make sure that there would be no more such failures.

The six new arrivals had been assigned beds in the guard's barracks, in fact they'd been assigned a not so small chunk of it, as if everyone had shifted themselves away from the new arrivals (the barracks had room for twice as many people as it currently housed, another sign of the Hiregaard family's financial troubles) as if they carried some unknown but obviously very contagious disease.

Making the area even more spacious (if no more luxuriant) was that only Cal and Devi decided to take advantage of the offer, Alexander, Florence, Mirri, and James had all opted to take care of their own sleeping arrangements.

Which of course meant that Florence (a dryad's work is never done) used her magic to set up two small sanctuaries, one for herself and Alex, one for Mirri's coffin.

XXX XXX XXX

Mirri woke up from her traditionally dreamless sleep (dreams were for the living) and instantly knew that there was something wrong.

She wasn't sure what it was at first, while she'd shed many of life's irritations upon becoming a vampire, having to deal with a few moments of thickheadedness upon first waking was not one of them.

At the moment her eyes were not being flooded by sunlight or even torchlight so it was unlikely that some vampire hunter had thrown the lid to her coffin open and was about to drive a stake through her heart.

She fumbled around in the dark (not that she couldn't see perfectly well in darkness of course) confines of her coffin trying to figure out what exactly had gone wrong.

So far as she could tell the answer was nothing, nothing that she touched felt out of place or drastically unusual.

Nothing she touched was wrong, but the things that she couldn't touch were.

As she groped and flailed around inside her coffin the only things that she could feel was either dirt (dirt that was starting to feel rather superfluous at the moment, given that there was no lack of Nova Vassan soil to be had) or its wooden structure.

There was no warm flesh to be found, she was alone in the coffin.

"If he left to have some time alone with his staff..." Mirri grumbled to herself in irritation at James' absence.

The vampiress popped open the lid to her coffin and crawled out. She reached back into the coffin for her white hat (the only part of her outfit she'd taken off while laying with James in the coffin) and checked the ground.

Quite frequently James Firecat could move with a tread light enough that even she had trouble following him but "Maahes" clearly showed no such concerns.

She followed his trail leading out of the cave (she and James hadn't entered into it till they'd been ready to settle down for the night, thus there was only ONE set to follow) determined to get to the bottom of this, the sooner the better.

Then she heard a sound like a woman's scream, that is to say to her practiced ear (even years and years of being away hadn't made her forget) she heard the sound of a plains cat.

It was swiftly followed by another sound, this time something much more along the lines of a man screaming. Male and female plains cats alike had similar roars and both of them sounded like a woman.

That meant that whoever had just cried out like that was an actual human being, most likely suffering some terrible pain.

Mirri sighed and headed in that direction because she had yet to meet the poor sod in dire straights who James didn't try to help.

Her ears soon picked up the sounds of several beating hearts around the same time that her eyes caught sight of them. There were two workers, one of them trying desperately to press his somewhat tattered clothing against an obviously fresh gash in his arm.

Even though she'd 'eaten' recently Mirri's eyes couldn't help but focus intently upon the crimson droplets working their way free from his wound. Then her eyes fell upon four plains cats and one prone figure laying flat upon the ground.

"So, who wants to tell me what's going on here?" Mirri asked in a calm tone of voice that suggested her mood might not stay that way for long.

She also started to overlay it with plenty of vampiric charm gaze as soon as the two men turned their attention away from the plains cats.

Between the blood loss, shock of his situation, and (of course) the charm gaze, the wounded man's will melted like butter.

"We found a bag of golden coins while we were working on the bluffs today. They looked ancient, not like somebody had simply lost them or left them behind! So we decided to bury them before our shift ended and the guards searched us! But when we came back out to dig them up, those beasts attacked us!" He admitted openly.

"What is he doing here?" She demanded gesturing in the direction of the prone figure.

"Olav and I had just finished digging up the bag, when a beast pounced on him from behind and started tearing at his arm. I was sure he was a goner, and I'd be next when suddenly this voice called out to them! 'Hold! What you are doing to them is wrong! Why do you do this thing?' Was what he said.

Then the lad walks over bold as brass, and tosses himself on the ground face first and they've been on him ever since." The uninjured worker explained.

Sure enough James Firecat was laying stiff and still upon the ground the Staff of Bastet in his hands. The plains cats circled him, licking him again and again with their bright pink tongues.

There was no scent of blood coming from James, well at least none beyond a few faint traces from the recently reopened scars on his neck (nightly feeding sessions for over a year had left him with marks there that even his lycanthropic flesh couldn't quite fully mend).

"Leave the coins behind, get back to wherever it is you sleep and if you say nothing of this neither will I." Mirri promised them.

She might even keep her word, Mirri tended to prefer that people had offered her at least some kind of offense (even a relatively minor one) before she could draw true pleasure from their suffering, and helping people avoid servants of the Lawgiver could be its own reward.

The two workers departed swiftly, leaving her "alone" with James and the plains cats.

"All right then, so what do you think you're doing with my kitten?" She demanded of the black furred beasts.

Two of them took their attention off of James and positioned themselves between him and Mirri. One of them snarled angrily at her.

"Do you seriously want to come between the two of us?" She snarled right back.

Now that she didn't have to worry about anyone watching she decided that it was time to start really cutting loose with her own powers.

Mist swirled around Mirri and a moment later there was no trace left of the woman in white. Instead, there was a tawny furred lioness.

Mirri responded with a proper feline "roar" making it clear that she had no intention of backing down.

Pure numbers were against her, but on the other hand, the claws and jaws of ordinary animals tended to be extremely inefficient weapons up against vampires, and she wouldn't even need to unsheathe her own claws, not when she kill simply by draining lifeforce.

Except that it wasn't even going to come to a fight.

Mirri knew that James would probably have some unpleasant things to say to her if he found out that she'd killed some of these things, at least when they weren't actively posing a threat to someone.

Such a strong objection to doing something so obvious would have bothered Mirri a great deal more if how to still getting what she wanted wasn't equally obvious.

"You are going to leave, now." She insisted to the four plains cats.

Much like the human workers had been no match for her charm gaze, these things were no match for her ability to command animals.

Granted, most vampires tended to only use this particular ability to give the command of "KILL" but in at the moment "leave" would get the job done just fine.

With the plains cats dismissed Mirri returned to her human form, and then since James showed no signs of moving she turned her attention to the simple brown looking brown bag the workers had been after.

She flipped it over and watched as a dozen golden coins fell to the ground. Sure enough, they didn't look any she'd ever seen in Nova Vassa.

They had lettering on them that were so ancient (or so foreign) that Mirri couldn't make heads or tails out of it. What she could tell was that they seemed to have some sort of reclining cat figure on one side.

"Render unto Bastet what is Bastet's..." In the blink of an eye James had gone from laying on the ground seemingly dead to the world, to leaning over her shoulder looking down at the coins.

"So you're saying that since you're her son, those things belong to you?" She asked getting a distinct sense that she was talking to Maahes rather than James at the moment.

"No, I'm saying leave those coins alone." He intoned dramatically.

Mirri looked down at the coins, then shrugged, they were only gold after all, given that they'd need to be converted to local currency her cut probably wouldn't have even been able to afford a proper portrait.

"Fine, you can explain all this to Alex tomorrow morning. Lets get back to the coffin and get back to bed." She instructed him.

"If such is your will, know that my body has yet more fluids to impart upon yours should you so desire it." James promised.

Mirri's right eyebrow twitched slightly.

"You know, only you would say something like _that_." Mirri admitted, and she wasn't sure which occupant of the werecat's body she was talking to.

XXX XXX XXX

The next day things went worse, much, much, much, worse.

Before the group was able to finish breakfast (well before everyone except Mirri (who had already had her "breakfast" (along with "lunch" and "dinner") several hours ago)) ten workers had died to a rock slide.

Leaving aside their meals (or in Alexander's case after hastily wolfing down enough iron rations to choke a lesser man) the group raced out to see the situation and do what they could to help.

"It's... it's a cat!" Cried out one of the surviving workers pointing to the section of the bluffs whose shape had been altered by the rock slide.

What they could see looked as if it had been carefully shaped, not roughly hacked away at by workers so it could be carted off, but lovingly carved.

It was shaped like the point of a claw.

A moment later another of the workers gasped and pointed at a spot where the surveyors were clearing bushes up on the bluff.

"An eye, a giant eye has opened!" He cried out in panic.

Sure enough, where the surveyors had cleared the bushes away the now bare hillside seemed to be shaped like a round eye, carved on a massive scale. The vertical crack that formed the pupil of the eye was nearly a mile from top to bottom.

"Well... anyone else feel like they're being watched?" Cal reflected as he gazed up into the stone eye.

XXX XXX XXX

Things quickly went down hill from there.

One of the workers who was trying to chip away at the carved claw ended up getting killed by a plains cat on his way to lunch.

After that it was quickly decided that no one could "cut the cat" and live.

Which soon enough lead to a human avalanche that put the rock based one that had taken place that day to shame. Before it was time for dinner there wasn't a single worker left in the place, all of them had picked up as many of their belongings they could carry and headed off to try and find something, ANYTHING else that might offer a source of employment and didn't seem to be obviously cursed.

"This is all your fault." Grumbled Jiscaard as he stood around the now deserted quarry.

Alexander just shrugged calmly as he surveyed the empty workers' camp.

"You saw what sort of state those people were in, the only thing we could have done to keep them from running away would be cutting off their legs. Some things nobody can do anything about." Alexander insisted.

Jiscaard kicked at the ground in irritation.

Then he suddenly discovered a much better target, one that might actually give him some satisfaction to take his aggression out on.

"All this 'cut not the cat' nonsense, I'll show them what happens if you harm one of those mangy felines, nothing!" He promised before kicking out at one of the cats that the workers had kept as a pet but left behind.

The animal flew through the air and landed hissing in pain and anger.

James looked on in shocked horror at the man's mistreatment of the otherwise completely innocent feline, but wasn't quite able to bring himself to say anything yet.

"See? Being worried about cats, thinking they have magical powers, that's the sort of nonsense the Lawgiver banished from Nova Vassa! We shouldn't allow it to come sneaking back the first moment that something goes wron..." Jiscaard began but never quite managed to finish.

He flopped to the ground, making it possible to see that something had massively ravished his backside.

Floating above his back was a pair of spectral claws.

"Those who are cruel to cats... will have true cruelty done to them..." Announced a sibilant voice.

It came from an approaching plains cat... an approaching dead plains cat.

It was possible to see bones poking out through the creature's decaying skin, while only a few raggedy clumps of fur still clung to its body.

A moment later it transformed into a woman, a dead woman.

She was dressed in a starched white kilt, the hem of which was embroidered with images of tiny gold cats pouncing on black snakes. Upon her feet she wore golden sandals, and her face was hidden behind a combination headdress and mask. It was made of carefully carved and painted wood to make it resemble a cat's head.

So long as you focused on the mask, the sandals, or the outfit, it was just barely possible to ignore the fact that the woman was dead.

A thin veneer of mortality and beauty hung upon a long deceased carcass, no more able to truly deceive than a scarecrow could pass for a living person.

She raised a hand thrusting it threateningly in the group's direction, but said nothing more.

Cal abruptly began to shuffle himself around so that he could get James between himself and the undead woman (well the undead woman who wasn't officially part of the group) who was approaching them.

"You say that you love cats? That's great, we have long had nothing but the firmest appreciation for cats, in fact, right now this guy thinks that he's the son of a cat goddess! Funny world isn't it? Maahes or whatever it is you call yourself, why don't you explain to the nice lady why she shouldn't try to use her magic to kill us?" Cal suggested with a quite distinct air of forced jocularity.

Then there came the sound of a woman's scream, and more plains cats, living plains cats began to approach.

They weren't the only ones either, it seemed like every housecat for miles around was coming closer watching them with the sort of rapt attention a housecat would never EVER show a human (maybe a fish the human was holding, but not the human themselves) normally.

"Who... who are you?" James Firecat demanded as he took a step forward toward the dead woman, his voice quivering slightly clutching the Staff of Bastet tightly against his chest.

"My name is Tiyet, Highest Priestess in service of She of the Ointment Jar. I have come to pass judgment upon the vile serpents and ignorant monkeys of this land and bring about the age of the cat!" She cried out in the sort of dramatic manner which suggested a person wasn't so much interested in having a conversation as shouting loudly at anyone who they could force to listen.

"Hey, I happen to be a very well educated monkey!" Cal insisted, not willing to let a little thing like self preservation get in the way of making it clear that he wasn't a fool.

That, and he was fairly certain he'd faced down much greater threats than undead women who evidently had decided to give their afterlife in the service of cosmetic products.

"Two of you dared to harm me in a previous life, you will be made to pay for it!" She promised them as more and more cats edged closer to the group.

Huge plains cat and smaller housecats alike snarled in anger, ears pressed flat against their heads.

Tiyet walked closer and closer with each passing moment, until she was only a short lunge away from the group.

"I want to see the looks of pain in your eyes... while you suffer..." She snarled in anger.

"Well that makes two of us..." Said Devi Skye as she raised her right hand.

Lighting crackled forth from the magical ring she wore on the middle finger of that hand, and it jumped out at Tiyet.

It crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, and then suddenly was deflected downwards into the ground harmlessly.

"Foolish." Mocked Tiyet.

"Now then my pets. the time has come to..." She began to command.

The words died on her lips.

When magic had proven completely ineffective against Tiyet, Devi had decided to try for a more down to earth approach.

Her flail lashed out, wrapped itself around the undead woman's throat and dragged her close.

"Magic worked just fine against you last time, so I have a theory about why it doesn't now., As for your pets..." The elf reflected.

Her hands moved rapidly.

Her right hand kept a firm grip on Tiyet's head to keep her from slipping free while her left pushed the mask free from her face.

After doing that it reached into the bag of holding she always wore at her hip.

From it she pulled a brass shield and sent it spinning through the air away from the group.

Countless green eyes turned in the direction of the shield, to the point that James only just barely kept himself from leaping in its direction also.

With the cats distracted by the magical shield Devi let loose with another bolt of lighting at point blank range.

This one followed the straightest path imaginable, right into Tiyet's body, flash frying her into a pile of dust.

The mask she'd been wearing disintegrated just as quickly as its previous owner had. A bird like figure with a human head took flight in a manner that was starting to seem very familiar to the group.

Seeing that the immediate danger had passed Cal turned his attention toward the not so small clowder of cats gathering around the shield.

"You know what, I say we let them keep it, they seem to want it a lot more than we do." The alchemist advised.

"Render unto Bastet what is Bastet's." James agreed stoically.

"Still... what was with that weird mask, and how could it keep Devi's magic from working?" Cal pondered.

"Items that have a strong enough connection, a not just magical but outright mystical connection, after having been prayed over, sanctified and otherwise empowered with some aspect of a god, they tend to protect one from any magic not associated with that god." Alexander answered instantly.

"She was clearly dead, still throwing around magic spells, claimed to be a high priestess, I'm starting to think that we've got ourselves a badly preserved ancient dead." Mirri reflected.

"We seem to have made ourselves a new enemy and if that thing we ran into three times before was Tiyet..." Florence began before Alex cut her off.

"Then she seems to be coming back smarter and more powerful every time she 'dies' so to speak. Which means we need to do exactly what James suggested and find where her Ba goes when she dies then destroy it. The bird creature was flying off in a westward direction, I'd say we've got our bearing." The silver haired man commanded.

AN: I'm very proud of the way that the fight in this chapter ended, I managed to give Devi her first proper in story real crowning moment of awesome, it plays to her nature as the group's quartermaster, and it ties that stupid shield into the story making it good for something!

Also some of you may feel the need to point out that zapping someone with lightning while you have a metal chain (or flail) wrapped around their neck is not a good idea. To counter this, pick whichever answer you like best...

A: It's magic lightning, it doesn't obey standard rules about how electricity acts.

B: Cal as a Lamordian alchemist knows a lot about lightning. He's helped Devi alter her footwear so that it "grounds" her either through conventional or magical means, so that even if the lightning did arc back into her body it wouldn't actually hurt her.

Anyone familiar with this adventure in general and possibly some obscure Ravenloft lore in particular should know that some things are getting switched up here. The original name of the mummy/ancient dead is not Tiyet. I am not going to use the original name because it's part of a "joke"/"reference" that doesn't really work for me, or work in this version of the Ravenloft universe.

Instead we're going with a different "joke"/"reference" Tiyet is actually the name of a female mummy Darklord from the Darklord books who rules over an Island of Terror (in the sense of a realm that you can only get to if the Mists want to send you there) named Sebua that has no adventures that I know of connected to it, so in short nobody cares about her, she doesn't matter. She matters so little that I can use her name as shorthand for "important Ravenloft female Mummy" and decided to do so.

I'm using it chiefly because I couldn't find what I really wanted to call her, which was an ancient Egyptian female name that started with an "M" and sounded impressive. If you know any let me know and I'll alter the story.

Also worth pointing out that Tiyet the Darklord was a "pristine" mummy, the kind who are so perfectly preserved that they look better dead than most people do while they're alive, the Tiyet that the group is running into in this story, is decidedly not.

On a broader note, something that is going to be a bit of a running theme through this story is that even though their systems are pretty much directly at odds with one another when it comes to morality ("You taught a nine year old girl to use a your helicopter's minigun and then had her mow down two dozen people?" "They were two dozen mooks of the bad guy who murdered her father, and he was our fixer for one whole mission, and he brought synth-Chinese take out to the mission briefing for us. Also she's a big fan of our favorite show, My Little Technomancer, Friendship is Emergence. We stand by our decision." "Enjoy your point of notoriety." "Ehh I had too much street cred anyway...") heroes in Ravenloft, can be lot like Shadowrunners in some ways.

Heroes in Ravenloft are they exception and not the rule, and sometimes those with power object very violently to those who don't obey them. Survival at times like that is less about fighting, and more about knowing the interplay between various different factions, how to play them off against one another, and how to slip between the cracks. On the other hand, sometimes they're going to get treated in a surprisingly nice way by people who they have noticeable moral quibbles with.

In Nova Vassa our group is certainly getting the Shadowrunner treatment, at least in the sense of "we need some people who are highly skilled, willing to work for just about anyone with money to solve this very difficult problem, if we can find those people, we will not care where they fit in the power structure, we will make room for them."

In a realm as corrupt as Nova Vassa, little things like how humans aren't supposed to hang around with elves take a back seat to "He's in power and he said do X so we'll do X" and so with that letter Tristen gave the group they're basically legally untouchable even though they're pretty much openly flouting every rule written and unwritten about how you're supposed to behave in Nova Vassa, so long as they are still sticking to the one about following orders.

Finally the mask/headdress that Tiyet wears works more or less like it says it does, in the adventure book it provides her with 10% magical resistance, in this story that percentage/got increased dramatically because our heroes are more powerful than standard Ravenloft protagonists.


	8. Chapter 8

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Eight: Sweet perfumes of incense, graceful rooms of alabaster stone...

"This, this is where she came from..." James informed the rest of the group.

He'd tracked Tiyet's trail with all his traditional skill, and since her both her feline and human form had been decidedly on the decrepit side he'd been able to sort out her foot/paw prints from any of those left by other animals/people.

Eventually he'd brought them back to her starting point, or something close to it as the trail of prints terminated next to a large bronze door.

James followed up his successful tracking feat with a little quick trap detection and having been certain that there were no hidden panels, switches or levers gave the door a firm push.

It swung open allowing the group to enter.

Inside the strange structure, everything was oddly peaceful, both the near constant dust and wind which had assaulted them outside were complete absent.

The air did however smell faintly of decay, spice, and blood.

Standing in the doorway it was just possible to make out a niche in each of the room's far corners. A box of some sort filled each niche. Directly across from the door was an alcove, filled with a dark, hulking shape. Two red eyes peered out at the group reflecting the light of the doorway.

James pressed on fearlessly and soon the exact nature of the shape became clear, nothing more threatening than a granite statue of a reclining cat with rubies used for its eyes.

Still, almost the very instant that Cal (who as usual was bringing up the rear of the group) entered through the door there was a soft "click" and then it swung shut behind them.

Where there might have been a handle on any other door on the inside of this one there was a carved stone cat's head, its mouth spread wide open. Alexander had other things to worry about at the moment however.

"Cal what do those things say?" He demanded pointing at a series of strange symbols on one wall.

Before the alchemist could answer, James did.

"Walk softly, mortal, with head bowed. For thou hast entered the resting place of the high priestess. Wake not her ba through stealing that which lies within! Touch not her provisions, neither meat nor drink!

Disturb not the sleep of the holy cats, lest the wrath of the goddess herself fall upon you. When the time of pleasure is come, the goddess will restore life to her priestess by rejoining ka and ba in one. So too will she raise all of the faithful from the sleep of death unto a time of joy when every desire shall be satisfied.

Pray for that day, and do nothing unclean in this holy place. Now depart, mortal, and keep the name of our goddess holy.

But, if thou art a servant of the goddess, thy intentions be true, and if thou hast just cause to enter this place, give to the cat, that which she hungers for." He intoned in a strangely calm.

After the werecat finished speaking the blond haired man removed his glasses from his face, breathed on them, and wiped them clean on a sleeve of his brown coat.

"That is about the gist of it Boss, at least so far as the 'comprehend languages' spell I got placed on these thing can tell." He admitted.

"Is this place actually sanctified?" Alexander wanted to know at once.

"If it is, not in the name of any sort of 'good' deity. Proper 'holy faith' and 'sanctification' does more to keep me out than a brick wall." Mirri reminded the group, as she'd been able to walk through the bronze door with no more difficulty than any of the others.

"Well then that at least makes how to deal with these things simpler..." The silver haired man reflected.

Alexander began to approach one of the niches which held a large sarcophagus, it had been crafted in almost the exact same shape as the one Nicolai Androv had bought (including having several bright shining gems embedded in it) except on a larger scale.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of pain, I bet Wolf Claw is more than one twelfth your weight." He ruminated as the sword slid free form its scabbard into his hands.

Alexander then began to drive his weapon through the wooden sarcophagus over and over and over again.

It did not emerge stained red with blood, but instead a few flecks of brown clay. A great hissing and spitting noise came from within the wooden box, and Alexander's stabbing increased in both speed and ferocity. After thirty seconds or so the container went quite, but not about to fall for the oldest trick in the book, the group's leader gave it several more stabs just to be sure.

Only then did he gingerly open up what remained of the severely perforated sarcophagus. Inside lay a dead (make that very dead) cat creature roughly the size of a plains cat. It looked as if it had passed away some time ago, but been preserved in much the same manner as the undead housecat they had seen back in Kantora. Wolf Claw's strikes had finished off this particular beasts "second life" quite definitively.

"That one won't bother us, or anyone else, but all the same, lets leave the gems behind Devi. Something tells me that taking them would be more trouble than they're worth." He insisted.

Then he headed over to the second sarcophagus and repeated the process with even more enthusiasm until the undead cat within wouldn't be able to finish off a maimed mouse, let alone present a danger to a member of the group.

"Done and done, James check the door." Alexander commanded.

James did as he was told, and after being certain that there were no mechanical traps waiting for him he swung the door open abruptly finding himself face to face with a brick wall.

"Whoever built this place had a really low sense of humor." Cal couldn't help but reflect.

Before any further discussion could take place a thin stream of mist emerged from the wall. It floated toward the group assuming the shape of a ghostly cat hanging mysterious in midair. It licked it lips and then opened its mouth wide releasing a horrific shriek.

Then it vanished just as quickly as it had come.

"Well that could have been worse." Alexander sighed releasing the grip he'd taken on Wolf Claw as the strange beast had appeared.

"WHAT?" Shouted Cal Wright in the sort of voice one tends to use when they fear speaking at anything less than maximum volume would risk not being heard.

"Cal what are you doing?" Alexander asked turning to face the alchemist.

"GUYS THIS ISN'T FUNNY! IT JUST GOT VERY DARK AND VERY QUITE IN HERE!" He screamed waving his hands around wildly.

"Magical trap that blinds and deafens?" Alexander suggested turning his green eyes in Florence's direction.

The dryad nodded.

"One of those weird ones that only affects those who aren't 'pure of heart' or something similar?" He further contemplated, noticing that where once Mirri had been standing before now there was only a collection of white mist.

"If the spell's effect on her had been at all similar to what it had done to Cal, she's probably taken precautions to keep herself safe." Alex suggested.

Florence nodded again.

Alexander sighed and walked over to Cal, taking the blond haired man's right hand and guiding them up to the strands of his own silver hair.

"EITHER THAT'S YOU BOSS, OR YOU'RE A WOMN WITH SOME VERY LONG SILKY HAIR!? EITHER WAY, I NOW FEEL MUCH BETTER ABOUT THIS SITUATION!" The alchemist declared bombastically.

Devi abruptly elbowed the temporarily blind man in the stomach and then took his other hand and guided it to one of her pointed ears.

"HI DEVI, OR SOME OTHER ELF, BUT I THINK DEVI IS PROBABLY THE MORE LIKELY OPTION AT THE MOMENT! IF I'M WRONG I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I HAVE NOTHING BUT THE GREATEST OF RESPECT FOR YOUR LONG LIVE PEOPLE AND THEIR GREAT HISTORY OF..." Cal doubtlessly would have gone on in this vein for some time but Devi slipped a hand over his mouth.

"We still don't know how to get any deeper into this place, or even how to get out." Florence reflected as there was no sign of any hidden doors built into the walls.

"If thou hast just cause to enter this place, give the cat that which she hungers for." James repeated calmly.

"I know what the cat hungers for... if I can just get outside again." He ruminated turning towards the doors which had closed behind them to lock the group in.

"I can have a go at them with Wolf Claw if worse comes to worse, but before we do anything so dramatic, I think we should probably wait for that spell to wear off." Alexander decided.

So they waited.

Soon enough Cal's eyes focused clearly on Devi and he lifted her hand for his mouth.

"So we're still in the exact same room where we started, well it wouldn't be the first time I made an ass of myself." He admitted openly.

A moment after that the doors they had entered through swung open. Mirri was standing behind them with a smug smile on her face.

"Sir, it might be time to think about pulling back. There's still no faith barrier, but whatever that was, I'd rather not go through it again." The vampire informed them.

James eyes went wide at a sight of the open doors.

"Miriam please watch over this sacred item until I can return." He instructed before tossing her the staff.

Mirri did nothing at all, the staff bouncing off of her and dropping to the ground.

"No." She insisted flatly.

"I am unable to safeguard it when I assume Bastet's sacred shape though..." James pleaded looking quite crestfallen.

"Jeez it's bad enough when I have my own romantic squabbles to deal with, but now I have to sort out someone else's... Look Whiskers, I'll hold onto your sacred stick, just go do whatever it is that you need to in order to get this over with." Cal promised.

XXX XXX XXX

A short while later James returned in hybrid form, a very dead rat clutched tightly in his jaws.

Mirri held the door open and he proudly strode through them, rising up onto his hind legs in order to gently place the deceased rodent into the jaws of the jewel eyed cat statue.

The statue's mouth was depressed by the added weight and there was a soft "click" sound.

Then there came a second one as a section of the floor in the middle of the room began to slide away revealing a rusty iron ladder leading downwards.

James returned to his human form and took the Staff of Bastet from Cal's waiting hands.

"Thus is our path laid bare." He declared proudly before heading for the ladder in question.

XXX XXX XXX

The group headed down the ladder and soon found themselves faced with a corridor that split into four different directions. A pair of false starts later the group finally found one direction that didn't lead them to an abrupt dead end.

"Well I'm glad that we got that mess out of the way, now we should finally only have... some more weird... magical... bullshit... to worry about..." Callan Wright stated as he found himself suddenly much more alone in the corridor than he had been a moment ago.

"Okay this is new... with the last spell everything went blank and I couldn't see at all. Now I can still see, it is just that there's nothing else to see.

Also I can hear my own voice so my ears seem to be working properly, it is just that there's not a lot else to hear. I don't suppose you guys are there but invisible?" He asked tentatively.

"Why do you deny the truth that lies open plainly before you?" Demanded a familiar (but not at all friendly) female voice.

Then all of a sudden "she" was right there in front of him, the undead woman who called herself Tiyet.

She didn't look any better than she had the last time Cal had seen her, but on the other hand, she also didn't look much worse, was a pretty impressive achievement given what Devi had done to her.

"What truth would that be?" Cal asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

He had no idea what was going on, where his teammates were, or what this woman's real deal was, but the longer he kept her talking, the more likely it was help would arrive, hopefully.

"The power of my goddess flows through me, this entire tomb is a monument to her, here I am unbeatable!" She gloated proudly.

"Lots of people think that they're unbeatable, I tend not to trust them on the mater I've seen how they react to a round from Phoenix. If that was you we met before. well it seemed like bullets worked pretty well..." The alchemist reflected.

Phoenix rose up with lighting speed, and as his hand reached for the trigger suddenly it was filled with an intense burning sensation.

"BALL LIGHTING!" Cal shouted in pain as the heat was so great that it even disrupted his other hand which was holding onto the still unremarkable wooden stock.

Phoenix slipped free from his grip and clattered to the floor, Cal's blue eyes watching every single inch of its descent.

Only once it had stopped clattering did he look up and discover that Tiyet was no longer there.

XXX XXX XXX

One moment Devi Skye was walking through a corridor, the next she found herself in a room so small that her outstretched hands could touch the hard stone walls on either side.

Not just that, but the ceiling was uncomfortably low, to the degree that her pointed ears were brushing up against it. All sound was muffled, the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat.

"I'm in a cage... I really hate being in cages..." Devi growled to herself.

A moment later she heard a rumbling sound and the pressure on her ears began to increase.

"Wonderful." Was all she said as the ceiling began to get lower and lower.

Devi did the only thing she could, she laid down flat on her back so as to take up as little space as possible.

"I have seen worse than this, I have seen worse than this, I have seen worse than this..." Devi repeated the words over and over again as a mantra against panicking.

The ceiling continued to lower itself until her nose was pressing against.

A moment later, she wasn't alone in the small room any more. She felt something unpleasant rubbing against her right foot.

"Merrroww..." A cat just like the one that had attacked Nicolai Androv gazed deeply into her eyes.

It seemed at least somewhat more friendly than the beast that had attacked him though.

"How did you get into this room?" Devi wanted to know.

The cat rubbed itself against her and then began to lick her face with its decomposing tongue.

Devi neither flinched or fought back.

"I have endured worse than this, I have endured worse than this..." She began to repeat to herself stoically.

Eventually both the cat that was at her feet and the one that by her head grew tired over their games and stopped. Devi awkwardly tilted her head backwards slightly and watched as the cat near her head paced over to a section of the wall and pressed against it, opening up a tiny doorway.

Devi clumsily began to inch her way towards that opening on her back slowly but surely pulling herself free from the claustrophobic trap.

XXX XXX XXX

One moment Alexander had been leading the party through a corridor that had stretched out ahead and behind him. Then there was was suddenly a wall of cold solid stone directly behind him.

There had been no sound of a mechanism triggering, but here he was. Likewise there was no sign of his companions, he was alone with only a dark corridor stretching out before him.

"Do you know how powerful it is, to be a servant of a goddess?" Demanded Tiyet as she suddenly came into being before him.

"What is power without a good reason to use it?" Alexander replied advancing slowly towards the undead woman.

"Soon, I will reveal my mistress' strength to the entire word, all shall see the truth of her beauty and fall on bended knee before her!" Tiyet boasted.

"Do you know what it would take to make me believe?" Alexander demanded as Wolf Claw slid free from his sheath.

"Manifesting in our world and punching a darklord in the face. Several would be preferable, but I'll settle for just one. Until that happens, you might as well be worshiping the Mists themselves, given all the concern most 'gods' show for demi-humanity." He replied gruffly.

"My flames will warm the fires of belief in your heart!" She cried out as she made a few mystical gestures in Alexander's direction.

Absolutely nothing happened, and Wolf Claw swung a powerful blow straight at Tiyet's head.

She vanished just a fraction of a second before it would have connected leaving Alexander alone in the corridor.

"Well, that's at least one problem dealt with..." He reflected.

XXX XXX XXX

Mirri felt a moment of dizziness. As soon as it passed there was no sign of the others.

She'd been walking down a straight corridor that kept right on going straight as far as she could see just a moment ago, now the one she was in ended a few feet ahead of her as it joined another at a right angle.

From somewhere behind her, she heard a faint echoing "meow" sound.

Mirri twitched her neck in it's direction but saw nothing, and when she looked back Tiyet was coming around the corner.

"You think the cats are your ally. You merely adopted them, I was born to them, have served them since I was old enough to walk." She mocked Mirri.

The vampire raised both of her hands curling them into fists.

"You talk a big game, but lets see how well you can throw down! Trust me, you're gonna have a hard time making those fancy speeches with my fist lodged down your throat." She warned the undead priestess.

Tiyet made a few quick hand motions in Mirri's direction, and Mirri vaguely felt something starting to pull against her body trying to lock her muscles in place. The relationship between Mirri and her muscles had been entirely one sided for a very long time though, and that wasn't about to change today.

She ran towards Tiyet and turned her headlong dash into a picture perfect slide. She knocked her foe's long legs out from beneath her. For a few brief seconds, she had the pleasure of seeing Tiyet's eye sockets wiggle slightly as she no longer had eyes to go wide with sock.

Then she was gone in the blink of an eye.

"Yeah, that's what I thought.." Mirri growled, certain that Tiyet wouldn't come back to taunt her again for a good long while.

XXX XXX XXX

Suddenly the corridor that James Firecat had been exploring was plunged into a darkness so great that even he had trouble seeing.

A moment later he stumbled as if what had been flat level corridor before was now a downward leading set of stairs. James immediately took a step back, and began to feel out his surroundings.

He was in the middle of some sort of four way intersection. Shaking his head he began to retrace his steps. A moment later from behind him he heard an eerie whisper.

"James Firecat... this way..." It called out.

James turned in its direction and took a slow cautious step back.

"No, this way..." Another voice whispered.

James did nothing at all this time. He stood still for a moment, then clicked his tongue.

His ears were good, not good as Mirri's but still quite good, especially after he took a few seconds to remove his wide brimmed red hat.

If there had been enough light to see by it would be easy to notice how they grew from the top of his head and were covered with fur rather than anything approaching normal human anatomy.

As the sounds he generated ricocheted about the darkened room and bounced back to his ears, he tried to paint a mental picture, though the results were extremely fuzzy to say the least. He turned around slowly and clicked his tongue in the direction he'd come as well.

Then he continued to work on retracing his steps. He heard voices calling out to him from every direction and ignored them.

At the very end of the hallway he was able to feel out the existence of a stone lion, though he could locate nothing unnatural about it.

He turned his back on it, and promptly from behind hear a voice calling out to him.

"You had your turn." James stated calmly, he was determined to explore each corridor and find out what lay down each of them.

"We are more alike than you could possibly know..." Whispered a voice in the darkness, a voice unlike any of the ones he'd been taunted by before.

He clicked his tongue one last time, but by the time he did it, as far as he could tell the corridor was empty once again.

He made his way to the end of the corridor and found another cat statue waiting for him. This one was different though, its jaw had "give" and as he pushed it shut the wall slid away finally allowing light in.

XXX XXX XXX

In the blink of an eye a stone wall appeared in front of Florence Bastien. So quickly did it appear that she was unable to stop herself and walked right into it.

A thin trickle of golden fluid fell from her nose as she inspect her surroundings. A moment ago the corridor had been straight, now it was all twist and turns, and on the dusty floor she could see a single set of paw-prints, like those of a huge cat.

That was when she heard a low growl behind her.

Florence Bastien spun around and found herself face to face with another undead cat every bit as large as a plain scat.

The beast leaped for her, and Florence raised her hands and spoke a few words.

Before it could land and pin her to the ground beneath its bulk suddenly a huge twisting turning mass of vines and thorns sprung into being catching the cat in mid-leap.

It hissed, spat, and struggled, but all it managed to do was tear open fresh holes in its skin as it clearly lacked the strength to force its way through the thorns.

"Who do you serve? What do you hope to achieve?" Demanded a raspy voice.

The dryad now had to deal with the beast's mistress, Tiyet.

Florence Bastien raised her staff to face down the undead woman.

"I serve every single blade of grass that yearns to rises towards the sun, I serve every single tree root which searches for water, I am at the service of every form and shape of existence that wishes nothing more than simply to have the chance to be." Florence declared raising her staff towards Tiyet.

The mummy laughed ominously at her.

"Do not waste both our time, I have my goddess' blessing. Under Bastet's Paws, I am immune to your magic." Tiyet reminded her.

Florence was taken aback, but only for a very short moment.

"You know there's a funny thing about my staff that you seem to be forgetting..." Florence announced as she hurled her staff through the air, a moment later it exploded into countless wooden shards that perforated Tiyet's body from head to toe.

"It's also a WOODEN staff..." Florence told no one in particular as Tiyet's body turned to dust and a familiar human headed bird took flight away from Florence.

End Chapter

AN: First of all, I have a family vacation planned for this weekend that I plan to hopefully use to get a lot of writing done because I have no internet out where I am going. That is the good news. The bad new is that this meant that I had to get ready to go, and so this chapter is getting uploaded after fewer revisions than normal. After this weekend I'll do another revision and repost it.

Lets talk magic.

The spell on the "trick door" at the start of this chapter is "Holy Word" a cleric spell that causes everyone of a non-good alignment to need to make a will save or bad stuff happens to them. Improbably convenient as it is I'm saying that Cal (TN) and Mirri (CE) were both one level below the original caster of the spell, which is why they become blind and deaf but not paralyzed, because I am a horrible person who can ring comedy from a person being blind and deaf but not if they can't talk/act at the time.

Devi (TN) is subject to the spell also, but she made her will save unlike the other two while Florence (NG) along with James and Alex (both CG) were immune to the spell. Once again its one of those weird things in that ends up triggering off of alignment/pointing out people's alignment to a degree that probably should not be possible in Ravenloft (since detect alignment spells don't work/only detect along the "lawful/chaos" axis), but I'm not aware of any errata involving it.

Also the hidden trap door opens upon the PC's "placing fresh meat inside its (the statue's) mouth" and since the adventure book doesn't mention any fresh meat laying around for the PC's to use I had the group improvise as they felt best.

Tiyet used "heat metal" against Cal which causes the metal parts of Phoenix get magically hot to the point that he can't use it/put his hand near those part. She then uses the same spell against Alexander and Wolf Claw, which as you can see doesn't work. As for why it doesn't work, well that will be explained eventually.

She uses Hold Person against Mirri, and that doesn't work because paralysis related magic just doesn't work on the undead.

At the moment based on the adventure book Tiyet is only able to use up second level and lower spells, so she's making the most of what she has/isn't as well versed in undead/may not have realized Mirri is a vampire right off the bat.

Florence uses Wall of Thorns (which I talked at length about in the last book (oh and see last book for Cal's choice of "curse words" also)) to trap the undead Crypt Cat, and then uses something roughly equivalent to Quill Blast (another 5th level spell).

It still works on Tiyet because in this case the magic was centered around making the staff explode "properly", and then just letting fast flying chips of magically reinforced wood do their thing. Magic nullifying items in my interpretation of the setting tricksy/complicated if you are immune to magic that does not mean a magically hardened object will suddenly become soft upon striking you for example.

Also yes, you heard Tiyet right... the fur is really going to fly in the next few chapters.


	9. Chapter 9

Monster Part Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Nine: But dear God, you're the only North Star I would follow this far...

As the various members of the group found various secret doors leading out of the chambers they'd been teleported into, they gathered back together again, and thankfully it seemed as though the teleportation effects had been a one time trap.

Once they all found one another Florence shared the news of what she'd heard Tiyet say.

James took it well all things considered.

"This... this will not stand!" The werecat hissed, his muscles bunching up beneath his red jacket as he gripped the Staff of Bastet tighter than ever.

"James, do try and keep in mind that Tiyet is probably so old that she makes even me look young. Religions change over time, I should know after all, I've spent several centuries watching how the Iron Faith fluctuates." Mirri pointed out.

Her words did nothing to calm the cold fury that was building within James Maahes Firecat though, most likely because "Maahes" was probably as ancient as Tiyet, if not more so.

"The teachings of Bastet, they are not to be interpreted or preached in such a way, they are not to be used to such an end! This once sacred place has been made profane by her! This... this is why I sent here, I must correct this heresy, or sell my life as dearly as possible in the attempt." He intoned with deadly seriousness.

"We are here for you Omega." Alexander reminded him.

"This isn't your fight, it's our fight." The silver haired man insisted, wanting James to remember that he could rely on the other five to help him.

"The decisive blow must be mine Alexander, when the time comes, by my mouth or by my paw this will end." James insisted.

That seemed to be about as close to any reasonable compromise as James might be willing to offer, so Alexander didn't press the issue and simply got the group moving again.

XXX XXX XXX

"The mouse goes into the hole, it looks to the left, it looks to the right, it raises its nose to sniff for cheese, it buries its head to the floor, it looks to the right again..." James Firecat whispered the words so softly and gently that a miniscule "click" was still louder than they were.

He gently withdrew his lockpicks from the door he'd been carefully working on (opening locked doors dedicated to Bastet was evidently acceptable behavior so long as it was done without damaging them) and pressed it open leading the group into another chamber.

As the door swung open it was possible to smell two very different odors. One was a sweat earthy smell; a fragrance like perfume. The other was the odor of wet rot.

Directly before the door leading into the room was a low altar, heaped with piles of tiny white bones. To either side was a stone pillar carved into the shape of an elongated sitting cat, and each cat had one eye open.

The center of the room was taken up by a low platform. To one side of it was a coffin-sized tray lined with silver and smeared with a thin residue of sweet smelling dried mud.

To the other side was a round opening, reminiscent of a well. A faint gurgling noise came from below. In front of the far wall was a granite statue of a reclining cat, both of its eye sockets empty.

As the group carefully entered into the room keeping themselves prepared for an ambush Devi pointed out more strange writing on one of the walls. No sooner was it noticed then did James begin to translate it.

"Welcome, faithful servants, to the place where the bodies of the pious are prepared for the dreamless sleep. Here shall they be encased in the preserving earth until such time as the goddess awakens and raises them unto her garden of eternal pleasures.

Here, under the watchful eyes of the children of Bast, shall ye mix oils, salves, and earth. Here shall ye do what is needful to preserve the flesh, thus providing eternal home for the ka that gives it motion and life.

Observe carefully the rituals, and chant the sacred words, lest the ka fly from the body and be forever lost. This done and thy secret tasks here fulfilled, restore to the cat that which is needful." The werecat intoned solemnly.

"Can I get a translation of that translation, because I have no idea what a 'ka' is." Cal pointed out.

"The 'ka' is the vital spark. While the 'ba' holds our physical memories, the things that make us who we are, it is the 'ka' is what separates the living from the dead, or undead as the case may be. To use the most obvious example at hand, while Miriam does not draw breath, does not eat, does not drink, well does not drink water at least, she still has her 'ka' within her body." James explained.

"Okay then. Anyway, I was gonna point out that since the statue is missing its eyes, that's not exactly the hardest ancient riddle we've ever come across..." Cal pointed out eagerly.

"Somehow I don't think solving it will be as simple as going back outside, killing some kind of animal and placing its eyes in the statue..." Alexander predicted dourly.

"There are two obvious doors in this room, we should explore the other first before we try anything too desperate." Devi suggested.

James once again checked it for traps, and after opening was rewarded with something more inviting than a brick wall.

It took them to a short hallway and then a downwards leading spiral staircase. At the bottom of the staircase was an even shorter hallway and beyond that was a room filled with murky water. where there was only a foot of airspace remaining between its surface and the ceiling.

Those portions of the walls above the waterline were coated in a thick green algae. The surface of the water was likewise covered with viridian scum and the air was foul with decay. The room itself was on the narrow side, just ten feet wide, but it stretched out for over a hundred feet, though the keener eyed members of the group could make out an algae encrusted door awaiting them on the other side.

"Well this doesn't look at all like a trap just waiting to happen..." Cal pointed out ominously.

"The water is too thick to see any traps coming, barely enough room keep your head above it, and no easy escape routes. Lets go double back and find us some actual cat eyes, I can use those from those two I killed back by the entrance." Alexander suggested.

SPLASH!

Headless of his leader's orders James jumped straight into the water and began to wade through it towards the door on the other side.

"Omega, what do yo think you're doing?" Alexander shouted at him, edging towards the water but not following the werecat into it.

"Following the will of Bastet." James answered calmly as step by step he worked his way slowly but steadily forward.

"I'm not going to take my entire pack out onto razor thin ice because you have a hunch! If you go, you go alone!" Alexander warned him, his voice tinged with pain.

"With Bastet's blessings, I have no need for further aid." James promised him.

At first all seemed to be going well, but then after he had covered the first fifty feet or so, suddenly the surface around him began to move.

Ripples formed everywhere as tiny waves lapped against the walls.

Then a skull coated with algae rose slowly from the water before him. To his right a boney hand broke free of the muck as behind him yet another skeleton arose, fetid water pouring from its gaping mouth.

In short order James was surrounded by skeletal forms who stared at him with empty eye sockets, their bony arms reaching out to grab him and drag him down to join them in their watery graves.

"Florence, magic me now!" Mirri insisted, figuring that it would be useless to try and second guess the dryad's spell selection.

Florence laid a hand on Mirri's shoulder, and then the vampire plunged herself into the water. Every step of the way she reminded herself that it was only running water she had to worry about and this stuff looked like it couldn't even crawl.

As she did so the skeletons began their assault upon the werecat, but James was far from easy prey. He pulled the Staff of Bastet fully out of the water, and began spinning it around, first this way then that, deflecting one fleshless limb after another.

To the front, to the back, to the side, to the other side, to the back again, no sooner did each attack begin then he knocked the limb aside, though he was kept so busy defending himself that he had no time to launch counterattacks of his own.

With the aid of Florence's spell Mirri was able to advance through the water much more quickly than James had. The water seemed to be parting before her body as if wanted as little to do with her as she did with it, allowing Mirri began to race ahead as quickly as she could across dry ground.

She came up behind the pair of skeletal foes who were attacking James from the rear, her face splattered with muck and sporting in a feral snarl.

"DON'T, TOUCH, MY, KITTEN!" She screamed as she slammed their skulls together causing both to explode in a shower of ivory splinters.

With one of his flanks secured James was finally able to go on the offensive, and a few moments later he'd reduced two skeletons directly in front of him to powerless broken bone fragments. He and Mirri swiftly finished off the last two remaining skeletons and then took a moment to catch their breath.

"Spectacularly done Miriam!" James congratulated her.

"Mindless undead never give me much trouble, even if they're a little more resilient than most living foes." Mirri replied struggling to brush a few bits of who knew what from her hair.

The pair pushed forward, once again, Mirri having an easier time of it, though James showed no signs of wanting to return and get Florence to enchant him also.

No more zombies rose to challenge the pair, though with each step Mirri took it felt as though she was treading on someone's bones. She made sure to walk extra hard, broken bones were a lot less likely to come to life and attack you.

As the pair got about a quarter of the way across the room they got their next unpleasant surprise.

There was a loud "THUNK" as a block of stone slid out of the way and water began to pour into the room.

A moment later there was another even louder "WHUMP" as a huge block of stone slid down in front of Alexander and the others sealing the hallway.

"Miriam, you need to depart at once!" James pleaded with her, holding tight to his staff, even as the water began to rise inch by ominous inch.

"LIKE HELL!" Mirri growled back at him, and pushed on.

A moment later their situation grew worse still as another section of the roof pulled back and a huge deluge of water poured down, slamming into Mirri and knocking her below the surface. A moment later she forced her way back to the surface spitting out water.

"The seal might be water tight, but in gaseous form it could be possible for you to..." James began to suggest as he kicked his legs and rose with the water.

He could swim well enough to avoid drowning for the moment, but the gap between the water and the ceiling was already alarmingly small.

"Worry about yourself Maahes, you may be part god, but I don't need to breath." Mirri insisted as she headed for the door.

She reached it at around the same time as James' head was starting to bump up against the ceiling. Mirri had to resist the urge to take a deep breath, and then dove into the murky water plunging down through the watery mess.

Even her eyes had trouble seeing anything through the gunk and grime. The only good news was that even with water flowing into the room, it still didn't seem to count as the proper sort of mystical "running water" which proved hazardous for vampires.

Her hands grabbed hold of the door and she tugged as hard as she could trying to pull it open.

It was no good though, whatever was on the other side of that door it wasn't filled with water she was fairly certain. While that was in theory good news, it also made the door the next best thing to impossible to open. Cal had once mentioned some long boring mathematical principle dealing with such things, but Mirri didn't care much about the specifics.

All that mattered was that opening this door wasn't an option, she'd have to take a difference approach.

"Miriam..." She heard a voice gasping out for her.

She kicked her way to the surface (what little there was of it) her face red with anger.

"I CAN'T DROWN, HOW HARD IS IT FOR YOU TO REMEMBER THAT?!" She screamed back at him, before heading back into the water.

The door was built on a "lip" of sorts so there was no way for her to do a direct run at it and try to batter it open further limiting her options.

Since physical force, even vampirical physical force would not be enough to force the door open, rather than try to make the door swing back, she'd instead resolve the issue by making the door simply cease to be there at all.

She dropped as far down to the bone "floor" as she could possibly go and was only an arms reach away from the bottom of the door.

It was a very, very good thing that Florence had enchanted her, otherwise there was no way this could possibly work.

She rolled her shoulder back and then let loose with one of the most powerful punches she possibly could.

The door creaked slightly before her blow, but didn't break. Mirri pulled back her arm and let loose with another punch, leaving the door dented this time around.

Risking a look up, she was fairly certain that the water now filled up every single inch of the room. She pulled her fist back and gave the door the mightiest blow she could imagine. She'd never hated an inanimate object as much as she hated that door at the moment.

KRSSSSSSHHHHH!

Mirri punched a roughly fist sized hole in the bottom of the door.

Fetid water began to drain out of the room splashing its way down the stairs she'd just revealed a path to.

The amount of water in the two hidden sections up above seemed to have only held enough to completely fill the chamber, now that there was a way out, the room was starting to drain.

Once the water level had lowered enough that her head to break the surface again, Mirri breathed an unnecessary sigh of relief.

A moment later she was half bowled over from behind as the rescinding water carried James into her, though he did try to make up for it by throwing his arms tenderly around her.

"You were right... the skeletons were no great feat... but that was truly spectacular." He gushed.

"It had to be done." Mirri replied in the most dispassionate voice she could manage.

"Just because I can't drown doesn't mean I wouldn't be bored spending an eternity down here with only some bones to keep me company." She pointed out.

"Further down and further in..." James suggested gazing at the small opening Mirri had managed to bash in the door.

It was probably a bit too small for him (even in cat form) but since the water pressure had equalized James and Mirri had no trouble forcing what remained of the doors open the old fashioned way.

The trip down the stairs was uneventful, and at the bottom they found a carefully designed grate in the floor along with another door.

This one opened easily to the touch but as it swung outwards a foul odor like that of rotted flesh sprang forth to great them.

Behind the door was a circular room that was empty except for a pair of round brown stones.

"Well this should be easy enough... don't do anything until I get back James." Mirri insisted.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I disobey such a command." James promised her.

Mirri promptly about faced and made her way back up to the top of the stairs she'd just come down. Given that her outfit was pretty much ruined beyond the point of anything but magic helping, she felt no regrets about jumping back in the water, reaching down to grab hold of some of the bones that she'd walked across, and pulling out one about half the length of her arm.

She brought it back down to James, and then proceeded to gently toss it into the room.

Despite the additional weight she'd just added, no trapdoors swung open, no hidden blades stabbed out, and no additional gasses or liquids began to flow into the room.

"Well, that could have gone worse, you can take it from here..." She suggested.

James did a quick once over of the entire room and still didn't find any further traps. Which just left them, the empty room, and the stones.

Now that she could get a closer look at them she noticed that the each had a dark stripe rather like the pupil of cat's eye. Granted, their color reminded her of one 'cat' in particular at the moment.

Since there was nothing left to do, Mirri reached out for them.

Just before her hand could close around them, the stones rotated slightly until the dark line on each of them faced her directly.

Before she had time to react, the air shimmered. The stench grew a great deal worse, and then there standing before her was a mangy looking tiger.

Its fur hung from it in strips, while its rotten flesh revealing pale white bones. What had been harmless brown stones were now this beast's eyes.

It was at times like this that Mirri hated two things, one of them was magic, the other was the fact that unlike most vampires, she'd just never gotten the knack for commanding other undead.

Controlling actual living tigers were no problem, but undead ones, not so much.

Luckily, no sooner had the creature finished materializing, then it got a few things of its own to hate.

"BEGON FOWL MOCKERY OF A ONCE LIVING BEAST… no offense Miriam!" James cried out as he transformed into his hybrid form, still holding onto the staff of Bastet and leaped up onto the monster's shoulders.

The staff slammed into the into the tiger's back again and again. Each time it struck the undead monster bright orange sparks filled the air. If the tiger had originally been "thinking" about attacking Mirri, it now had much bigger things to occupy its mind.

It rampaged about the room snarling and slashing as it tried to toss James from its back so it could bring its claws and teeth into play. It did so without any sort of success though, James clung on for dear life in a not entirely metaphorical manner using his own clawed feet for all they were worth.

Mirri wasn't going to let him have all the fun though, she executed a near picture perfect reverse scissor kick, leaping up into the air and twisting her body around in order to slam one booted foot firmly into the distracted beast's head.

Its skull shattered like a cheap plate that had just gotten an up close and personal introduction to a sledgehammer.

The rest of its body dropped to the ground, its bones instantly turning to dust, while the two stones which had started this entire mess popped out and bounced away.

The vampire quickly scooped them up before an undead lion, or worse yet an undead liger could come into existence.

Just to be on the safe side, she kept the eyes firmly in her hand, ready to start squeezing if some new monster tried to materialize.

"Another glorious victory!" James declared proudly slamming his staff on the ground for emphasis.

"Let's just hope we don't need to win any more before we can get back in touch with the others." Mirri grumbled.

She and James retraced their paces back up the stairs, and then waddled/walked their way back through the water towards the door they'd originally come through which still had a large stone block sealing it up.

At least it was, up until they were about halfway across the room.

Then all of a sudden there was a few loud repeated "THWACK" sounds, and the entire thing fell apart into several much smaller chunks which tumbled into water below.

His task finally completed Alexander sheathed Wolf Claw and crossed his arms.

"Well that took much longer than I expected it would, how come you two weren't helping on the other side?" He inquired.

End Chapter

AN: Florence hits Mirri with a "Freedom of Movement" spell which I've talked about previously in this book. It's a "touch" range spell, (hence why she isn't able to cast it on James after he goes into the water) and, well let me quote the relevant passage from the D&D rules via the D&D wiki.

"The spell also allows the subject to move and attack normally while underwater, even with slashing weapons such as axes and swords or with bludgeoning weapons such as flails, hammers, and maces, provided that the weapon is wielded in the hand rather than hurled. The _freedom of movement_ spell does not, however, allow water breathing."

Luckily being able to breath underwater is not a high priority for Mirri, since as she points out in the story, she doesn't need to breath. What matters is it effectively creates some kind of magical force-field/water repelling effect that keeps her from being slowed down by the water around her.

Also lets talk about vampires and "drowning" or what the vampiric equivalent of drowning is. For a vampire to suffer penalties from being fully immersed in water require one of two conditions to be met. The most obvious one is if the liquid in question has been blessed/is holy water, which this most doubtlessly isn't.

The other is if they are in "running water" or according to the Van Richten Guide to Vampires (page 48) "First the water in question must be rapidly flowing; oceans, creeks, streams and the like will not suffice." While more water is being poured into the room from up above, once it is poured in, it is not going anywhere, that's sort of the point of a drowning trap like this after all, you put a lot of water in a room with no where for it to go and people inside drown. So while the trap works perfectly against humans, it can't harm vampires, even though at first it might look like it can.

Also I'm sorry for my mistakes previous in this "book" on Egyptian mythology concerning the various aspects of the soul.

The adventure book describes the "Ba" as a portion of the soul that represents your physical vitality (and thus so does James a few chapters back), which is really a much better description of the "Ka" all things considered.

The "Ba" is who you are, the "Ka" is what makes you alive. So a mindless zombie would be said to have a "Ka" but not a "Ba" because it has no sense of self or individuality. Okay that's a bad example since even objects can have a "Ba" at times (if you know a musical/mechanical instrument that has certain unique behaviors/character compared to other ones of the same make you know what I'm talking about) but you get the idea.

They (the adventure book) are correct that the "Ba" is frequently depicted as a bird with a human head though. So yeah, I'm sorry for trusting this adventure to get its Egyptian Mythology right, I really should have known better or at least double checked to be sure.

A normal scissor kick involves leaping up into the air and raising one leg up over your head, it's something you see in soccer. When I talk about a "reverse scissor kick" it means that Mirri is leaping into the air, then having one of her legs trace a crescent moon like path into her target. If there's a more technical/proper name for it I'm not aware of it and will revise the chapter if I get advice/feedback.


	10. Chapter 10

Monster Party Book Four: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck...

Chapter Ten: Please don't be in love with someone else, please don't have somebody waiting on you. Please don't be in love with someone else...

With the group reunited they traced their steps back to the larger room up above with the three cat statues. Mirri carefully approached the one which was lacking eyes and slid the twin stones into place. They looked so right and natural there that she could have sworn for a moment they "blinked" at her.

Shaking away such absurd notions she instead focused her attention how the sound of a soft "click" from elsewhere in the room as another masterfully hidden passage in the floor slid open revealing a ladder leading down.

"Is anyone else starting to detect a pattern to this place?" Cal reflected dryly.

No one else bothered to answer, and James swiftly began to scuttle down the ladder to see what else lay in store for them.

One long passage later they came upon another unlocked door that James gently and carefully began to apply pressure to.

The doors slowly creaked open and for a moment the room remained dark.

Then they could hear a faint "pop" noise on either side of the door.

Hidden in shadowy niches were two metal braziers, something red glowing inside each. The sweet smell of incense began to tickle the group's nostrils as smoke curled up from the braziers and formed clouds bumping against the ceiling.

Watching closely, it was possible to see the clouds starting to take on a vaguely catlike shape. Sparks from one of the braziers raced up towards the smoke and swirled there, forming two malevolent glowing eyes.

"This bodes ill..." James reflected.

Those were the only words he managed to get out before one of the smokey cats suddenly proceeded to "pounce" on him, in the process loosing all aspects of being feline and becoming nothing more than a cloud of dark smog.

Instantly James' voice became nothing more than a hacking cough.

"How are we supposed to kill smoke?" Cal asked looking to Alexander for suggestions.

"I've yet to meet a problem that punching can't solve..." Mirri growled before stepping up to bat.

Her hands began to swing through the strange creatures, and though it was impossible to tell if she was truly harming the thing, her hands certainly seemed to be.

The other smoke cat attacked Mirri just as it companion had James, and while she was unbothered by its attempts to cut off her supply of oxygen, she could still keenly feel flames starting to flicker around her head and scorch her skin.

Before the creatures could continue their attack Florence's hands traced mystical motions in midair while her mouth called forth an incantation. From out of nowhere came a powerful gust of wind, that blew the black clouds of smoke across the room finally allowing James to get a breath of fresh air.

"Greatly... appreciated... Florence..." James gasped in between his huffing and puffing for as much oxygen as he could possibly get.

On the other side of the room the two clouds of smoke began to pull themselves together into misty cats again.

"Shoot?" Cal pondered.

"Shoot." Alex agreed.

Phoenix barked, and the bullet passed right through the smoke cat, momentarily creating a hole in it, but soon the smoke poured back into the hole, leaving the monster completely unharmed.

As the magical gust of wind abated from Florence's hands the two cats began to dash across midair back towards the group.

"Devi, magic bullet now!" Cal demanded as he worked his weapon's lever.

Seeing that there was no way Cal would be able to win this particular race, Florence quickly summoned up another gust of wind and used it to send the smoke cats sailing back across the room a second time.

From within her bag of holding Devi pulled out a seemingly ordinary bullet and tossed it to her partner. Cal caught it, and in one smooth motion, slammed it into place. His left hand worked the lever, he aimed, and then he fired.

The bullet slammed through the smoke cat on the right and this time it exploded into a puff of dark fog. Cal began to call out for another magic bullet, but before he'd even started to raise his voice, Devi had another bullet sailing his way.

The remaining creature turned its attention in the alchemist's direction and attacked. Just as the smoke cat was about to completely encompass his head, Cal raised the reloaded Phoenix up, sticking it into the midst of the mist beast and pulled the trigger.

There was another loud "BANG" and the smoke cat was spread to every corner of the room.

There was silence, and no further mystical beasts arrived to attack the group.

With no major monsters or other problems to worry about the group progressed toward the one obvious door leading out of the room.

The door was locked, but like so many of its companions, the lock proved to be no match for James' masterful skill at opening that which others had sought to keep closed.

Once the door was opened, he headed in and discovered that dominating the center of the room was a large statue of a reclining cat. It rested on a dais surrounded by two low steps while its head was slightly tilted to the side as if listening.

Something about the room wasn't right though, an unnatural stillness hung in the air. It was almost as if the room contained a palpable barrier of some kind. James went into the room, and looked around, seeing two obvious doors leading out.

"..." Said James Firecat.

"..." Countered Alexander who was looking right at the werecat but hadn't heard anything.

"..." Added Cal Wright as he hoped up and down (making not a single bit of noise) pointing at a series of strange markings on the wall.

"..." Suggested Mirri.

"...!" Growled Alexander motioning everyone to follow him as he retreated out of the room.

They followed him back out and he turned to Florence.

"Some kind of magical silence field?" He pondered.

"Well we could step back inside, and you could try asking me again if you want to be sure..." Florence reflected dryly.

"There was more of that mystic writing in there, but I didn't get a long enough look to memorize it." Cal pointed out to the others.

Alexander made a few quick motions with one hand, and then twitched his head at Cal, as if suddenly deciding that they were back in the silent room.

Devi pulled out a sheaf of paper and a pen and handed it to Cal.

Cal went into the room and got to writing, and shortly enough he retreated back out.

"I got it all Boss. Ahem... Enter, faithful servants, unto the place where the ba is withdrawn from the flesh and placed into vessels of safekeeping. Here shall every thought be made as clear and imperishable as glass, until such time as the goddess breaths them, gently as dreams, back into the bodies of the faithful.

Here, under the listening ears of the children of Bast, shall ye place the body in the casket of dreams. Observe carefully the rituals, and chant the sacred words, lest the fragments of ba slip from the body like whispers on the wind and be forever lost. This done and thy secret tasks fulfilled, provide unto the cat that which she finds pleasurable." Cal explained.

"I shall provide unto the cat that which she finds pleasurable!" James abruptly promised and tramped right into the room.

He reached out and began to stroke the statue slowly and carefully, as if it was a living being. Despite the fact that nothing James did created sounds, when the werecat stroked the statue sound finally emerged, from the statue itself. It was the sound of a deep throaty purr.

Then the door on the right side of the room promptly swung open. James motioned towards the other and they followed him.

The newly opened door was a spiral staircase leading them downwards still deeper into the crypt. Once they managed to travel the entire length of the staircase, they found a large door waiting for them. A quick push revealed that they were unlocked, and as he put pressure on them, the doors creaked open revealing a large room.

Directly across from the group on a rectangular dais set against the far wall is a statue of a reclining cat with its mouth open, a golden tube hanging above its head.

To either side of the dais are two fountains, each of which sent a steady trickle of liquid down into a square pool. One those liquids was clotted and white, and from its rank smell it was most likely sour cream. Small and mangy undead cats clustered around it, lapping up the foul-smelling liquid.

The other fountain spewed a pale yellow liquid that smelt like vinegar.

Nearby lay a large lump of torn flesh and another swarm of undead cats with dirty matted fur tore at it, hiding its exact nature from the group. Still, what was visible was that one of the cats happened to be busy playing with what might have once been a human finger, batting at it and tossing it into the air like a mouse.

A table had been set up with meat that had long ago become unpalatable to any human, make that any mammalian stomach. Flies swarm around the rotten smelling meat filling the air with a low droning noise that could almost be mistaken for purring.

"They... they are cats." James gasped in surprise.

"Wait, you're seriously surprised? I don't know who is in control at the moment, but Maahes, James, even YOU are supposed to be better than this! We're in a gigantic crypt that was carved in the shape of a cat, that's dedicated to a cat goddess, and we've only had to solve at least three different cat related puzzles so far, you're really surprised that we're running into more cats?" Cal gasped shaking his head in amazement.

"No, I mean look at them..." Even as he spoke, the rooms feline occupants continued the same actions that they'd been doing when the door had first been opened.

"Every other undead cat we've come across, no matter its size, they've attacked any living target they could find. These ones, they are simply behaving as they might have in life." James explained.

Now that he'd actually bothered to explain his thinking Cal was unable to find any flaw with James' comments.

"Let's try not to disturb them." James suggested calmly.

"I've heard worse ideas." Devi agreed.

The group slowly entered into the room. The undead cats began to approach the group and began to run rapidly around them. James' brown eyes watered slightly and reached down a hand to stroke one of the undead beasts.

"Kitten, do you really want to think about what kind of disease even you might end up catching from one of those things?" Mirri warned him.

"All things strive..." James whispered solemnly.

"You're not exactly in a position to talk to anyone about the dangers of associating with undead things are you?" Cal pointed out rather smugly.

"They're mindless undead, and that's assuming we'd even be able to tell the difference given that they're animals. For all we know becoming zombies actually made them smarter." Mirri replied, throwing in a haughty sniff just to complete the effect.

As the group proceeded still further into the room the were able to get a better view of the nearby areas. To the left and right the wall bulged into a large niche, each containing a wide planter filled with plants that had long ago turned brown and brittle.

Something stirred in them causing the leaves to rustle.

Directly before the altar a large carpet and several cushions had been spread out on the floor. All of them were thick with dust, their colors and patterns obscured.

A cat was hunched at the center of the rug methodically clawing one of the cushions to bits. Sensing the group it paused in its shredding and looked up at them. Sure enough the creature's skin and fur were just as shredded as the cushion it had been attacking.

It hissed at them, but a moment later a chime sounded, and the cat turned away from them, racing over to the others who were drinking from the spoiled cream fountain.

At the same time, James's hat began to shift slightly as his ears twitched about beneath it and he turned his eyes in the direction of the rotted food.

Many of the undead cats were turning their attention to it and James looked like he might be about to do the same, but Mirri promptly put a very firm hand on his shoulder.

"Hungry Kitten?" She asked in a voice somewhere between soothing and anger.

"Yes..." James rumbled.

"Does that meat look fresh? Because unless it is, is it going to make you any fuller to eat it?" The vampire pointed out.

James thought it over for a moment, and then shook his head clear as he realized how right Mirri was.

"Yuck, that stuff looks like it could give even my stomach a run for its money..." He admitted.

Then, trying to clear his head he slowly got down on his knees and smiled softly as he looked down at the design on the carpet before him.

It depicted a cat-headed woman holding a bunch of herbs, offering them to the many happily playful cats which surrounded her.

"Mother..." The werecat whispered reverently.

Mirri couldn't help but lean in close herself to take a good look at the carpet. She'd seen James pay reverence to Bastet through his black stone icon of her, but this was the first time she'd seen the goddess depicted as something other than a cat.

She was honestly a little surprised, for some reason Mirri would have expected Bastet to look more like a hybrid werecreature, instead she looked... well like a cat form the neck up and a human from the neck down.

"Hey whiskers, I found another bunch of those weird glyphs, you want to translate this batch?" Cal offered, figuring that only James' duty to the group was likely to break him out of his devotion to Bastet at the moment.

Sure enough, the werecat stood up and followed the alchemist to the runes in question and began to read.

"Welcome, Tiyet, to thy second life. Here thy faithful servants have placed everything which is pleasurable to the palate. Eat from the plates of plenty, drink from the restorative fountain. Surround thyself with the goddess' chosen children and enjoy this sacred bounty.

Should ye who are reading these words instead be faithful servant of the goddess, come to lay another worthy then offer to the cat that which she craves." James explained.

"How is 'that which she craves' different from 'that which she finds pleasurable' exactly?" Cal couldn't help but ask.

The group turned their eyes toward the cat large cat statue in the room.

"We've seen a lot of drawings of cats, but that one James just knelt by, that's the first one we've seen with herbs in it. Something tells me we need to find some of whatever the herbs, it depicts are." Devi suggested.

"I'm not sure how accurate the the carpet painting is, but it certainly looks like catnip to me." Florence suggested.

In the time it took her to say those words the other four members of the group had all chimed in as well.

"Catnip." Alexander predicted authoritatively.

"You want happy cats, you use catnip." Mirri pointed out.

"Given the sort of stuff I've heard you been ask to keep in your bag of holding, catnip." Cal advised.

"Surely it must be the most favored plant of my mother, nepta catria, also known as catnip." James declared confidently.

Silence hung in the air for a moment as Devi sighed.

"Well of course I could have just guessed it was catnip. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something obvious I might have overlooked." The elf insisted.

"Do you happen to have any of your own personal stash left?" Cal asked as he leaned in closer to Devi and her bag of holding.

"I... um... used the last of it recently... Miriam and I found it helpful to help cement the strength of our relationship which has been shaken by my recent supposed mental malady..." James explained, looking rather embarrassed.

Mirri on the other hand was decidedly less reserved when it came to her thoughts on the matter.

"You know, I just love the way that the four of you are just standing there glowering at us.

Like we could have seen it coming that we'd wind up in some strange dungeon where our recreational material is necessary to saving the day?

I want you to keep those looks you're giving us in mind very clearly, because some day, we're gonna wind up in an even weirder dungeon where we need sheep bladders, and you lot are gonna have used them all up!" The vampire pointed out derisively.

"Lets not have this discussion, lets really not have this discussion." Cal suggested.

It didn't take too long for the group to come to an agreement on that front.

They proceeded into the only obvious door leading out of the room other than the one they'd come in through. Inside they found a much smaller room...

XXX XXX XXX

Mirri looked around the side room and stared at one shelf in particular. It held a total of eighteen large jars, each of them of a most unusual nature. They seemed to be made of some crystal clear material that made it possible for her to see what lay inside them, and they each glowed with a mystical internal light.

Within each of the jars lay a perfectly still housecat.

They were curled up as if asleep, eyes closed, and Mirri could not hear a heart beat coming from any of them.

That wasn't too surprising given that as she worked her gaze from topmost shelf down she saw that cat after cat resembled the undead decaying creatures that they'd already seen so many of.

As she came to the bottom row however two felines stood out from all the rest, their fur was unmatted, and they showed no clear signs of sickness or death. Mirri shook her head not sure what to make of it.

"I get the mummification, it is sort of creepy but I can understand why they did if it was common for important people back then also. The pair on the bottom though, they look as if they were taxidermied? Why would they change the method of preservation for the last two?" She wondered.

Devi pushed past and began to run her blue gloved hands along the containers, starting with those higher up and eventually working her way down to the last two and their strange contents.

"They're not taxidermied Mirri, they look like that because they aren't dead or undead, they are alive." Devi informed her.

Mirri found that a bit hard to believe to say the least.

"Yeah right, cats that don't have beating hearts and have been trapped in jars for who knows how long are still alive? Pull the other one it's got bells on." The vampire snarkily replied.

Devi gestured toward one of the containers holding a half decayed cat.

"These things, they're not just fancy looking pots. They're jars of preservation, I'm sure of it. Not very powerful magic all things considered, you mostly hear about them being used in places where they have trouble storing crops normally. Hundreds of years taking place outside are just the blink of an eye to whatever is inside.

Granted, I've never heard of anyone bothering to use them in this manner before, but I'm sure those two cats are still alive. The other sixteen would have been also, but if you look at the state the ceiling is in, well when it caved in most of these jars ended up chipped or cracked badly enough that the magic failed and time caught up with their occupants.

Those two however, it might be because they were farthest from the ceiling, it might be because they were lucky, but their jars are still intact. As soon as the top is removed they'll awaken and should be no worse for wear." Devi explained.

"Miriam we must rescue those two poor creatures from an eternity of waiting for some sacred duty that will never come!" James advocated at once.

Mirri shrugged and pushed past Devi to unscrew the lids on the jars and pull the cats free from them. It didn't hurt to humor James even if she suspected two live cats running around surrounded by a horde of their undead brethren might soon join them in that particular state.

"You know, they're almost a matching set, I wonder if they were a mated pair?" Florence pondered as she looked upon the cats in question.

Sure enough the two cats did have quite distinctive fur patterns. The male was all black except for a noticeable white streak located underneath his chin. It almost reminded Mirri of the color of her own hair or a gentleman dressed up in all his finery.

In turn, the female was pure white, except for a black streak below her chin. Regardless of if the pair had been mates before going into the jars, or were simply happy to see another living cat, as soon as they were roused from their magical sleep they began to quite vigorously groom one another and purr.

"They'll need names." James insisted.

"Names?" Alexander gasped clearly feeling that the group was spending far too much time worrying over the state of a simple pair of housecats.

Now that he was "James Maahes Firecat" Mirri suspected that neither would be willing to back down, and decided to just get it over with.

"Count and Countess." She suggested.

As Count and Countess were busy getting to meet their rescuers, the demi-humans turned their attention to the rest of the room.

They began to slowly and carefully approach a withered pile of leaves in the room. It was hard to tell exactly what it was, and it didn't help when the cats drew close all of a sudden they hissed and fled.

A small collection of brightly colored insects began to scuttle out from beneath the dead plant leaves.

STOMP STOMP STOMP STOMP!

James rapidly began to stomp away on the various bugs, and seeing the sheer enthusiasm with which he did it, the others joined in.

When none of the insects remained willing to show themselves James slowly picked up a leaf of the dead plant.

"It's catnip... the most distinctly dead catnip that I've ever seen." James reflected.

"Do you think it will still work?" Alexander suggested, giving James his head in this matter.

"If it doesn't... I will place my trust in you Florence that you might be able to rekindle it's spirit." The werecat offered.

That seemed to be as good a plan as any, James carried the dead catnip in one hand and the Staff of Bastet in the other as they went back into the main room. He slowly approached the cat statue and placed the the catnip into the statue's mouth.

A moment later, he pulled his hand out with a yelp of pain.

"What is it?" Mirri was at James' side almost instantly.

A moment later she got her answer as a brightly colored snake slithered into view. It had obviously been curled up inside the statue, and it was responsible for the rip in James' glove, along with his angry red welt on his hand.

Mirri asked no questions, she placed her lips to James' hand, (it wasn't as if she really needed an excuse) and began to suckle gently from it, if nothing else she wasn't afraid to accidentally drink snake venom..

A few moments later the cat statue finally manged to make up its mind and decide that it was willing to accept the dead catnip and a door began to swing open

Looking around, Mirri saw yet another hidden door opening itself to the group, though this one had been built into the walls.

"Hello Maahes..." Huskily announced Tiyet who was standing behind the door.

"You." James snarled back at her.

"You're upset with me aren't you?" Tiyet inquired, her face looking as upset as she possibly could, with her lack of eyes, and decrepit features.

"You may hate me now Maahes... but you need to realize, we were meant for each other.

In this entire foul land... we two are the only ones who know the truth of Bastet, the only two who offer up our voices in prayer of her mighty name." Tiyet intoned solemnly.

"James what are you doing? Less talking more murder!" Mirri growled and prepared to suit word to deed.

As she moved forward however she discovered that her eyes had been flickering back and forth between James and Tiyet so frequently that she hadn't bothered to check the path directly before her was clear. Several of the undead cats had clustered around feet while Tiyet been talking and she tripped on one of them, sending her sprawling towards the ground.

She began to say something but it turned into a scream of pain as the many undead cats converged on her, and out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Count and Countess joining in as well. They dug into her body as deeply as their small claws and her own vampiric resilience would allow.

The only way to escape quickly was for Mirri to take on gaseous form, and in that ethereal state she was powerless to do more than watch what came next.

"The future of my mother's faith must come first..." Maahes decided.

Then he took off running, like Mirri even his normally sure footed steps were unable to find a perfect path through the maze of cats, and he tripped. His face was still filled with a dreamy far away expression of pleasure as he tossed the Staff of Bastet across the room and began to transform.

He hit the ground on all fours in cat form, and a red furred blur streaked across the room, and jumped into Tiyet's waiting right arm, her left having caught the Staff of Bastet scant seconds beforehand.

Then both of them vanished.

End Chapter.

AN: I really hope he title song I selected for this chapter didn't end up giving away what was going to give away at the end.

Phoenix is an amazing (masterwork) gun, but by D&D rules you can't actually make guns magical. I tell a lie you can't "EFFECTIVELY" make a gun magical, and even that is not super clear so let me explain in more detail. A magical gun will be better for bludgeoning people to death with, but the bullets it fires will be no more powerful.

So, much like James tends to carry a great many knives, Cal makes sure to have all kinds of bullets on hand, some on his person some in the bag of holding. Magical bullets are extra expensive, but in some cases, like when you're fighting a smoke elemental, ordinary lead just won't do.

Early on in the chapter Florence uses "Gust of Wind" which is a second level utility spell that's very useful for keeping smaller foes in check, or keeping smoke elementals from killing you by blowing them away, they tend to do damage both based on their fiery bodies and suffocating, which is why Mirri is still hurt by them, but not as much as James is.

The good news is that the next chapter is pretty much already written, and even the chapter after that, but sadly I still need time to proofread this stuff before I can post it, also starting a new job tomorrow, so yeah I wouldn't be surprised if I find myself stuck to this once every other week time frame I've been using.

As for the catnip, studies have proven that lions sometimes react to catnip just like housecats do, though not always and obviously you would need a lion sized dosage of it. That said, in theory Mirri (even in her lioness form) still shouldn't have any sort of reaction to catnip because she's a vampire and undead, so mind effecting chemicals shouldn't work on her. On the other hand, a vampire taking on animal form doesn't look like an undead version of the animal even to the degree that they look like they're dead human beings normally, and... in my setting catnip is magic, that's all I've got people.

Also in real life trying to suck out snake venom out of a wound is a very bad idea, primarily because the person doing it is likely to end up getting exposed to the venom even if they do manage to extract it from the victim's body. Mirri only does it because as a vampire she's used to drinking blood and she's immune to all conventional toxins.


	11. Chapter 11

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck...

Chapter Eleven: You left without me?! And now you're somewhere out there with that; bitch, slut, psycho babe!? I hate you, why are guys so lame?!

Mirri reformed herself back to being solid flesh and turned her gaze on Count on Countess.

Those two ungrateful fleabags, how dare they claw her in the back (in more ways than one)?

She went and acted like a dull fanged fool, let them out of their stupid magic jars, and this was how they repaid her? The scratches they'd left on her body were completely cosmetic, but that didn't change the sting she felt from the betrayal at their paws.

"You two... you two bloody ungrateful beasts..." She growled her eyes flickering towards a nearby fountain gushing spoiled cream.

She hadn't bothered to use her ability to control living animals yet today, and these two were the first, surely the only ones she'd encounter any time soon. She should make them pay for what they'd done to her!

"Everyone stand back, I'm going mesmerize these flee bags. Then I'm going to make them give themselves a great big bath!" Mirri chortled with wicked glee.

Yes that would be appropriate, they said drowning was a horrible way to die probably a doubly horrible way for a cat to go, triply horrible in such a blighted liquid, but these two had earned it and then some for their treachery!

Just as she was about to begin unleashing her powers a firm hand seized her by the shoulder.

"Beta, think about what you are doing for a moment, and realize... you could just stop. Are Count and Countess really the cats you're angry with?" Florence asked.

Mirri momentarily wished that she had an ability that would let her control trees, but as far as she knew vampires just didn't get that kind of power, so instead she had to face up to Florence's words.

"No alpha female..." She replied in a voice that had just a touch of false petulance and a generous dollop of the genuine article.

"Firstly I'm not feeling angry at Count and Countless, not even at James. It's that faux cat faced feline manipulating bitch Tiyet who I have a score to settle with.

Secondly I am not angry, I AM FURIOUS! I AM INCENSED! I AM INFLAMED! I AM PIQUED, PROVOKED, SPLENETIC, VEXED, AND MOST OF ALL I AM WRATHFUL!" Mirri shouted the words to every corner of the room.

That helped some, not a lot, but some.

"Now then, would one of you be kind enough to return Count and Countess to their jars? I have a feeling that it'll be a while yet until it really is safe to let them out." Mirri requested with all the politeness she could muster at the moment.

"Once we've done that, I'm going to show that prehistoric bitch how we do things in Kantora!" Mirri vowed.

XXX XXX XXX

The group chased after Tiyet through the most recently revealed secret door. On the other side of said door they found themselves in a room whose walls were alive with shifting cat-shaped shadows. It was as if the room was filled with cats running, leaping and playing. Some of the shadows loomed large as if the cat was close to their light source while others were smaller as if the cat was closer to the walls.

Near the center of the room was a life-sized statue of a cat, carved of smoky crystal. After a moment it begins to shimmer and transform. Its eyes blinked, then its fur fluffed and the statue came to life. A gray kitten looked up at the group with wide eyes, meowed sweetly and stepped forth to brush against the group's legs in greeting.

It did one complete circuit of room brushing against every pair of legs it could find playfully before returning to its starting position and transforming back to a statue.

"Well, that was weird." Cal Wright reflected as he focused his attention on the next task before them.

There was an obvious door leading out of the room, and a quick tug on the handle showed that it was just as obviously locked.

He began to inspect the lock very closely and whistled.

"I don't build my entire life around this sort of thing, but this looks like one of the best locks that we've come across for a good long while, Devi get me my tools and I'll see if I can't..." Cal began.

He was interrupted by a soft "wush" of air and another sound that wasn't anywhere near so soft.

"I guess that works also." He admitted, as before he'd even finished inspecting the lock Mirri had kicked the door open with one well placed blow.

XXX XXX XXX

The five adventures pressed onwards through another corridor and then entered into the next room (Mirri still striding forward so fast that the others had trouble keeping up with her) and she found herself in a large circular room. Aside from the door she had just entered in through there were nine more, all spread evenly around the room.

Mirri could see an image of a cat on each door, but suspected that only one would go forward while some sort of bizarre feline themed trap would lurk behind the other eight.

Whump, whump, whump, whump whump whump!

There was a strange sound building inside the room, and then Mirri heard another much louder "WHUMP" from behind her and turning around saw Florence had fallen to the floor. Alexander was already beside her, the dryad pressing both hands to her chest her face filled with pain.

"Too fast... too fast..." She gasped.

Mirri heard the words but only just barely, not because of how softly Florence spoke them, but because of the other sound.

The sound that she had learned to identify with food, with safety, with, as much as a she was still capable of this particular emotion by any human standard... love.

It was the sound of a cat's heart beating .

It filled the room, beating louder than James' ever had and as it did so a small crimson speck fell upon Mirri's cheek.

It was blood.

Her mind was temporarily overwhelmed by the sound, and her tongue casually licked up the droplet. As she did so she realized that the feline heartbeat was surrounding her more and more.

It wasn't really growing louder, it was just growing more ever present, Cal, Devi, Alexander, and even Florence's hearts were beating a rate that they had never been meant for.

"We need to get out of here now..." Alexander gasped picking Florence up off the floor, only to have his legs buckle as he suddenly fall to the ground.

Cal and Devi both collapsed a scant few seconds later.

"My legs... can't move my legs... that stupid cat statue, it did something to our legs!" Cried out Cal as he struggled to pull himself out of the with his arms alone.

Mirri remained stationary, standing there in the middle of the room as more and more blood began to drip from the ceiling in time with the sound of a cat's heartbeat.

Maybe they were meant to drown in the blood, maybe they would perish from whatever spell was speeding up their heartbeats and the accompanying cardiovascular distress...

Maybe that f#$!ing bitch Tiyet should have designed her traps after contemplating that she wasn't the only undead creature in the world?

Not even the strange sympathetic magic of this room could rouse Mirri's unbeating heart to action, and likewise her legs, animated by her own willpower alone were not as easily immobilized as those of living flesh.

Still, she had to be swift and sure, most of the others might last a minute or two, but Florence probably had much less time given the unpleasant colors her face was turning.

Red eyes perused door after door, which one was different from the others? One showed a cat leaping through the air, one a cat in confident stride, one a cat cornering a mouse, one a cat chasing a ball, one a cat climbing a tree, one a cat with its fur raised in fierce defiance as it stared down a dog, one a cat scratching at a tree to sharpen its claws and... one a cat laying peacefully in a sunbeam.

Mirri hurled that door open, and found another seemingly ordinary corridor behind it. A seemingly ordinary corridor without the sound of a cat's hear beat.

The sound began to fade slowly, first it ceased to come from in front of her, then it ceased to echo from the chests of her companions, and finally no longer pounded down from above.

The four living adventures present breathed sighs of relief though Devi still twisted about on the ground awkwardly.

"The cat statue in that first room, it's magic is independent of whatever spell was placed on this one. That's why our legs as still paralyzed." The elf pointed out.

Mirri walked over and began to carry them out of the room and back into the hallway between the two rooms. With neither cursed statue or demonic heartbeat they should be able to lay there safely till the magic wore off, even if it didn't do so till she tore what passed for Tiyet's heart from her bony chest.

"I don't have time to wait for this curse to wear off, I've got to get get James back." Mirri informed them in a tone of voice that not even Alexander, not even Florence should try arguing with her on this point.

"Take these..." Cal offered as he removed his blue lenses.

"If there's more of that crazy writing up ahead something tell me you better be able to read it." The alchemist pointed out.

Mirri took the blue lenses and slowly gingerly placed them across her face. Her vision swum for an instant before returning to normal or at least near enough normal.

"Thank you..." She said slowly, knowing how Cal loathed to part with any of his toys.

"Take this also." Devi insisted as she slipped off one of her gloves and removed the ring from around her pinkie finger.

"I normally use it to give my flail some extra punch, but it should work just fine for your fists." Devi offered.

Mirri slipped the ring over her right middle finger, she intended for Tiyet to get very familiar with it in the near future.

"Mirri, lean in close." Florence insisted.

The vampire did, unsure of what the dryad had in mind.

Florence placed her hands on top of Mirri's.

"There are those who think that creatures like you are monstrous things to behold because you persist after 'death'. I am not among them.

If death can be accepted as part of the natural cycle, then surely undeath must be as well. Life, death, ripeness and rot, they are all part of the cycle of the existence. So I will not shirk from the chance to sharpen your claws for the coming battle..." As she spoke Mirri felt strange energy flowing through her body.

She couldn't describe it, but she was happy to have it all the same.

Once Florence completed the spell she passed out, clearly the dryad had already been pushed to the edge of exhaustion even before she tried to use magic.

Then Mirri turned to the leader member of the group.

The silver haired man reached up and adjusted his eyepatch slightly sliding it over so that his covered his left eye instead of his right. Alexander Diamondclaw's right eye was a strange deep golden yellow color, and when light struck it, it reflected the stuff back with an unnatural glimmer.

Almost the instant it was left bare to the world its owner stood up with no difficulty at all, seemingly shaking off the paralysis without a second thought.

"Do you have a gift for me also sir?" She asked rather cheekily.

"I've got to look after the others, especially Florence. As for you... Considered yourself officially ordered to come back undead with James in tow. You know what will happen if you disobey my orders..." Alexander Diamondclaw declared before he threw in a salute.

Mirri returned it and then she was off racing back through the room with the cat's heartbeat (though the trap did not trigger this time around) through the door with the sleeping cat, and onwards towards whatever obstacle might dare to try and impede her progress next.

So it was that Mirri left the rest of the group behind and pressed on.

She didn't need them, she didn't anyone, all she needed was revenge!

An unlocked door was swung open with such force that it ended up developing a noticeable dent after striking the wall beside it.

Mirri instantly found herself face to face with a room whose walls were covered by still more of that strange writing. Granted, now that she had Cal's glasses she was finally able to read it with her own eyes.

"Arise, Tiyet, and take up the battle once more against the evil minions of Set. Lead the priestesses of Bast in their quest to sever the head of the serpent and free the citizens of Bubastis to follow the truest of callings- the pursuit of pleasure.

Gird thyself well for battle from the holy relics of your tomb. Assemble ye the children of Bast in an assault on our enemies. With those who have accompanied thee on thine long sleep, ye cannot fail. Fight with tooth and claw against those who took the first of the lives Bastet bestowed upon thee.

Go forth into the world once more, and seek ye your pleasures. We await thee there.

Should ye who are reading these words instead be a faithful servant of the goddess, come to place another offering in the tomb of the high priestess, then assume the position of reverence and pass unhindered." Was how it went.

Mirri blinked a few times and shook her head. Whoever had written these messages certainly seemed to be preaching a different brand of Bastet worship than James normally did.

James' version was heavy on the importance of the cat as a guardian of hearth and home, and how he would be derelict in his duty if he did not protect such places, even when they belonged to other people. These writings though, well the repeated mentions of 'pleasure' reminded Mirri of the rantings she'd heard from a fey at one point about a spider goddess.

Mirri had already joined the dark sisterhood of Kali by that particular point in her unlife so she'd seen no real reason to consider changing deities again, but the Spider Queen's overall approach to existence hadn't sounded too objectionable.

So was James preaching an especially... Jameish version of Bastet's teachings, or were Tiyet's followers equally off the mark? Neither of them seemed to be a very unbiased source...

Mirri shook her head trying to drive all thoughts of both James and theological debate from her mind, the true teachings of Bastet didn't matter. The only divine dogma that really mattered was what Kali had to say, like "once Kali had destroyed all the demons in battle, she began a terrific dance out of the sheer joy of victory."

Still, for a brief moment Mirri did feel vaguely disconcerted by the fact that she wasn't carrying any symbols of her devotion to the Dark Mother. It'd never really seemed very important up until now, but without the heartbeats of her living companions present her ears she could very clearly hear how this place seemed to practically throb (one might even say "purr") with some sort of mystical energy.

She decided that she'd kill two birds with one stone by using Tiyet's skull as her own way of showing reverence to Kali. That decision made, she pressed onward through an open door, pretty as you please.

She raced through it and Mirri instantly found herself face to face with a room whose walls were covered by still more of that strange writing.

A single glance with Cal's glasses was all the vampire needed to know that she was seeing the exact same words as she had a few moments ago. She risked a look back and instead of seeing the room she'd just left, she saw the corridor where she'd left the group behind.

"Very funny." She growled, realizing that she must have been teleported when she'd passed through the door.

Figuring that it might be a one time effect like that other teleporting trap they'd discovered earlier in the crypt, she ran through the open door again.

Mirri instantly found herself face to face with a room whose walls were covered by still more of that strange writing.

"Well so much for that theory." She growled in irritation.

Mirri concentrated and her body dissolved into a rolling white fog bank that flowed across the room and through the open door.

When she pulled herself back together in a solid shape Mirri instantly found herself face to face with a room whose walls were covered by still more of that strange writing.

"OH COME ON!" She screamed at the ceiling.

The trap must be keyed to something going through the door, which meant she could avoid it if she tore down enough of the walls, but that would take time, time she didn't care to waste at the moment.

Just how time consuming a process it would have been was proven when in her frustration she kicked the wall beside the door and saw barely a single fleck of stone fly off.

"This is stupid! How the hell am I supposed to have any idea what the 'position of reverence' I need to assume to 'pass unhindered' is?" She called out turning her head to the skyward in ever mounting rage.

Looking up at the ceiling she saw that it had been painted to depict a scene similar to many others on display throughout out the crypt, basically cats playing happily with women dressed in white.

At which point what she needed to do became blindingly obvious.

Mist swirled around Mirri again, but this time instead of seeking to become one with it, Mirri took on the form of a tawny furred lioness.

She walked sedately on all fours through the open doors, and found herself in someplace that looked like a gigantic library.

A glance back showed her that the room she'd just walked through was still behind her as well. She returned to human form and as she did so her eyes fell upon a scroll that was laid out on a nearby dais.

She would have ignored it completely in favor of her hunt for Tiyet, if not for the fact that her name was plastered across the top of it.

"The first life Tiyet, High Priestess of Bastet..." Was the title of the thing written in big bold letters.

For the first half of the scroll the lettering was fairly sedate and calm (Mirri wasn't quite sure how Cal's glasses managed to translate both the words and the style in which they'd been written but that was magic for you), the subject matter dry and uninteresting.

A little past that halfway point however the letters became larger and slightly scrawled as if the writer had become quite emotional.

"Today a man named Tekhen angered Bastet by deliberately killing one of her temple cats in a fit of rage when his child was stillborn. As High Priestess I have decided that the punishment must fit the crime. So as he caused death of one of Bastet's prized creatures, I took the form of a gigantic cat and mauled him to death. It was a most... exhilarating experience!" The scroll announced.

Mirri blinked in bemusement a few times.

Just by reading that one portion alone, she could take a pretty good guess at what she'd find if she kept going.

Sure enough, as she would all too willingly attest, if you found killing someone pleasurable, you didn't do it only once.

The writing promptly became larger and more florid going into greater detail of the nature of deaths Tiyet inflicted. Sure enough, what had started out only being a punishment for followers of an evil cult or people who killed temple cats grew steadily more and more common.

Before long Tiyet was choosing to "play" (the euphemism she favored) with people because their cart had ended up rolling across a random cat's tail, or because they were giving her prized feline's dirty looks.

Miriam Kantrar who worshiped the Dark Mother and fed exclusively on the blood of demi-humans was perhaps not the most justified person to take offense at someone else's approach to religion or morality, but at the moment she certainly felt like doing it.

"Kal-li!" She couldn't help but gasp after reading Tiyet's description of how she'd turned herself into a cat and hamstrung a man before starting to eat him alive from the feet up.

While Mirri tended to offer up prayers (if she had the time) to Kali after having a little "fun" of her own, she was fairly certain that she'd never killed someone just because she imagined that her goddess wanted her to do it (granted there had been plenty of other reasons, but still, never that particular one).

"You were one sick pussycat even when you alive weren't you..." She reflected as she forced herself to keep reading.

The next section concerned a man named Kematef who killed one of the temple cats. It'd evidently been so long since someone had been foolish enough to commit an actual real crime worthy of punishment that Tiyet's blood lust practically flew off the page.

"Keep it in your kilt sister..." Mirri sighed, she was no stranger to blood lust, (in fact she had quite a bit of experience with both the traditional and a more... literal interpretations of the phrase) but there was just something vaguely unseemly about seeing the details written down.

Murder was supposed to be a private guilty pleasure that you indulged in someplace dark away from prying eyes, like those chocolate candies she'd liked back when she was still alive. It was supposed to be fun because it was bad for you, and society would "tut-tut" (well more like "chop-chop") if they caught you doing it.

The way that Tiyet reveled in her actions and didn't seem to realize that what she was doing was wrong (Mirri by comparison was very aware that she frequently did things that were wrong, she just didn't care) it all added up to someone who capital "C" "Crazy".

If Mirri hadn't been sure of it, she would have been once the writing suddenly became lurid in an entirely different manner as Tiyet began to describe how for a condemned man she had promised to brutally murder, Kematef seemed to be doing a surprisingly good job of being alive and sweeping Tiyet off her feet.

Mirri had to fight back an urge to cheer a moment later when the handwriting on the scroll changed to a completely new style.

"Much to the anger and sorrow of all, we discovered that Kematef has secretly hollowed out his teeth, and filled them with a deadly poison. One single bite took Tiyet to death's door, and she left us less than a day later. We have taken her body to be interred within the crypt, where she will lay until Bastet awakens her for her second life." Was the second to last line in the scroll.

The very last line was back to that familiar hand, if at its most unsteady.

"Serpents Fear Me... Cat's Revere Me..." Were Tiyet's final words.

Mirri rolled it up, ripped it in half, then a few more times for good measure, and finally stomped on the scraps of paper.

Whatever else, Tiyet didn't deserve to have her history recorded in such detail. Still, with the scroll taken care of, Mirri turned her attention back to the room. There were no obvious ways out of it other than the one that she'd come in through.

"You know what, screw fancy riddles..." Mirri concentrated and transformed into a cloud of white mist and began to roll through the room.

She rubbed against each and every wall and ceiling that she could find. Inspecting the room for even the slightest crack, it didn't take her long in order to discover that there was a secret passage hidden behind a picture of Bastet hanging on one of the walls. Mirri poured in through the it and reformed herself, having managed to get herself one step closer to Tiyet...

Slipping into another corridor and returning to human form Mirri could see no sign of a way out of this room as the corridor terminated in an abrupt dead end.

She ran a hand along it looking to see if that would trigger any sort of hidden switches or pressure plates before a cold mist began to rise from the floor. In a matter of moments it was swirling around her knees and growing so thick she was having trouble seeing through it.

She felt something soft brushing up against her legs and then the mist began to spiral upwards to form a ghostly shape in the air. A giant mouth with long white fangs took shape in the air an gradually a feline face formed behind it. The mist cat blinked and focused it eyes intently upon her...

"Seek you to enter the tomb of the high priestess? Preform the ritual cleansing or become my prey." Mirri heard the ghostly cat intone.

There were two possible meanings to this request, one of them was that the answer was so blindingly obvious it couldn't not occur to her. The other was that there was some intricate cleansing ritual known only to extremely devout followers of Bastet and given that this was a tomb built to her who knows how long ago not even James would have a clue what it was.

If it was the second then she had no chance at all of getting it right, so best guess it was the first and if she got it wrong, well the creature was going to attack her anyway if she did nothing.

"Please stout hearted and loyal guardian I will only be a moment." Mirri responded, figuring that she had yet to meat a cat (magical or otherwise) that didn't on some level enjoy a bit of flattery.

Then she daintily removed the white gloves she wore from either hand revealing the pale skin beneath. Mirri carefully turned her hands so that they lay palm up before her, lowered her head and began to gently apply a thin coating of saliva to each palm.

Having done that she began to run her hands through her hair recalling that she'd only seen James in various forms clean (or at least attempt to clean) himself in this manner about a million times over.

The smokey cat's eyes widened slightly and then it lowered its head and offered her a smile.

"Having cleansed thyself of impurities of the body, the path to the high priestess lies open to you so that she may cleanse you of impurities of the soul." The cat announced, before starting to fade away one bit at a time with his smile going last.

As it vanished a pair of double doors that hadn't been there before were now plainly visible.

Only once she was completely certain the mist cat was gone and not coming back did Mirri speak up.

"Oh there's gonna be some 'cleansing' going on, that's for sure..." She muttered to the empty room before pressing onward yet again.

End Chapter

AN: You know how I was worried that the last chapter's song title would give away what the chapter was about? I'm not worried about the possibility of that happening this time... that's because I'm sure it does since this is pretty much the most "on the nose" chapter title I've had since... well since a few chapters back when I used a song lyric from Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for a chapter about Tristen Hiregaard.

When Alex refers to people by their "pack rank" rather than their name you know he's being serious. When FLORENCE does it, well the fact that she's busting out the "four magic words" should say all that needs to be said on the subject.

The cat statue is designed to paralyze the legs of anyone it rubs against, but does so on a delayed action effect, in game terms it would probably have gone off (2d4 rounds IE 12 to 72 seconds) before the group went into the room with the cat heartbeat trap (and yes that's taken directly from the adventure book in how it kills you by overloading your heart) but this is hardly the first time I've cared more about what makes a good story than being perfectly accurate when it comes to reflecting the rules.

The ring that Devi gives Mirri is a Ring of Mighty Wallop (or maybe Greater Mighty Wallop) which basically causes a blunt weapon (like someone's fists) to do damage as if they were one (or multiple if a powerful enough person casts Grater Might Wallop) size categories higher. Florence is directly casting Greater Magic Fang on Mirri's fists giving them a +3 (possibly higher if she's over level 15) magic buff to attack rating and damage that will last for a few hours.

Mirri's pronunciation of her chosen deity's name (or at least when it has a "-" symbol in it) is the equivalent of when a Christian says "Jeez-US!" as a cry of disbelief /horror.

Also whatever her other faults, she is correct in so far as the sacred symbol of Kali is a bunch of skulls strung together on a leather necklace, so she could certainly use Tiyet's as a starting point, assuming it doesn't end up turning to dust the next time she dies (as she has a tendency to).

The Spider Queen is the Ravenloft version of Loth who as you may be aware is not a particularly nice or forgiving deity, though of course those aren't things Mirri's really interested in finding her own divine being of choice. Kali won out over the Spider Queen however due to one story in particular (well that and she heard about Kali first and didn't want to go through the hassle of changing religions again), the story of her fighting the daemon Raktabija who had the ability to duplicate himself every time a drop of his blood hit the ground. Naturally this made him (them?) a near unbeatable foe against the other gods who did battle with him.

Then Kali showed up, and proceeded to start simply drinking up his blood before he could clone himself, and eventually devoured the demon itself whole. Mirri unsurprisingly was drawn to a deity whose great feat involves defeating foes via blood drinking, and Kali's philosophy of wreaking horrible destruction then creating new life in it appeals to her as undead who was given new life (or at least new existence) from her death.

Granted Mirri also has a pretty blasphemous approach to Kali worship in that she's not super big on reincarnation, or at the very least would have a bone to pick with the conventional view of reincarnation as followers of Kali see it.

They preach that Ravenloft is a terrible prison and that after people have been dutiful enough, they will be reincarnated into a new life in some other demiplane where they don't have to worry about darklords and similar. Mirri on the other hand would argue that she achieved perfection within a single lifespan (well a single lifespan and the "deathspan" that followed it) and for this achieved a perfect state (becoming a vampire) which freed her from suffering and made a word which was hell for others a heaven for herself.

Those of who you who have taken the right classes/read the right books might notice that if you turn your head and squint the differences between those two approaches have some things in common with the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, but that's entirely by accident and Mirri as previously mentioned doesn't have much interest in any religion which would argue for letting go of your desires/needs, she's much more into one that tells her to indulge in them as a form of self expression/reverence.

By the way, if you know the full length of the passage that Mirri is quoting, it actually ends up saying a lot more about her than she probably realizes.


	12. Chapter 12

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck...

Final Chapter (Part 1): Sick of all the good guys saving the day, cause the villain always wins when the heroes away!

The doors to the crypt's inner sanctum swung open before Mirri, and fell off their hinges a few moments later.

Given that said doors had been unlocked there had been no real reason for her to kick it in/down but sweet Kali it had felt good to do so.

On the other side of the door was an oddly shaped room with a ceiling so high up that Mirri couldn't even see it, though she could vaguely make out a few lanterns hanging up above. She instantly noticed how the air smelled faintly of spice and dust.

Just a few paces ahead of her stood an immense bronze statue that had the body of a woman and the head of a cat. Although its eyes were half-closed in a feline smile, its hands reached out towards her fingers curved like claws.

Some distance behind it was a wide low dais that was ringed by large stone statues of cats. They faced the center of the platform, and each gripped a glass car between their paws. At the center of the dais was a large sarcophagus glinting with silver and gold.

Its lid was already slightly open.

Suddenly Mirri heard a faint popping noise. A tiny green spark flared near one of the statues that rang the dais, but it faded as quickly as it had come into being.

Her undead eyes pierced the gloom she saw that resting on the rim of the sarcophagus was an emaciated hand whose fingers twitched and trembled, suggesting its occupant would not be asleep for long.

Mirri began to approach the grand sarcophagus. She wasn't really all that sure of what was going on but she knew a few things about how to slay undead (from self preservation if nothing else) and one of them was that anything actively laying unmoving in its resting place of choice was probably easy prey.

As she began to ascend the steps Mirri suddenly felt heat blaze about body.

"F$&K!" The vampire cried out and she leaped off of the stairs keenly aware that somehow her clothing and even her hair had burst into green flames!

Thinking fast she dispersed her physical form and became a cloud of rolling white mist. She floated there in midair for a moment as the flecks of emerald fire that had licked at her began to sputter out. Mirri could never be entirely sure what it was exactly that she and other vampires turned into (maybe each of them had their own unique gaseous form) but luckily whatever she became had never been especially flammable

That didn't mean she planned to press her luck though, and rather than try to approach the coffin in her mist form she settled back down to the ground and returned to her human one. The mystical fires had still left their mark upon Mirri leaving the edges of her outfit singed.

"Well... that wasn't good." She admitted wishing that she had Alexander with her.

the stone statues of cats as if reacting to her aborted attempt to approach the sarcophagus began to move. One by one the glass jars they held slipped free from their paws fell to the ground and shattered. Strangely colored mixtures drifted from the broken bottles, and all of them were drawn towards the central sarcophagus which suddenly opened and Tiyet the high priestess of Bastet (or whatever was left of her) emerged.

The dried husks that had once been her eyes gazed down at out at Mirri with boundless hatred.

"Fool, no creature of darkness like yourself may approach me as I slumber within my sarcophagus of resurrection, for the mystical powers of Bastet keep me safe as a kitten at its mother's side!" Tiyet derided her.

Mirri sighed heavily and then kicked at a small loose stone in the tile floor. She knocked it up into the air, grabbed it, and hurled it with all possible dispatch straight at Tiyet.

The mummified priestess rocked back slightly as the small stone slammed into her forehead.

Clearly even propelled by vampiric strength it had failed to do her any lasting damage, not that it really mattered though, the results of that test were still enough to bring a smile to Mirri's lips.

"Looks like the magic only works while you're inside that special box of yours. So why don't you save us both some time, climb back inside it, then never come back out? Whatever weird cat controlling domination you might be spinning around MY suck buddy is over. Understand?

Because if you don't, I'm going to turn your little lame liaison into a threesome, starring yours truly. And I don't kiss nice!" As if to prove that particular fact Mirri proceeded to flash a toothy grin in Tiyet's direction.

The undead priestess however was something less than overawed.

"You are nothing but a mewling quim next to me! You will not defeat me, not here, not in my sanctuary. Not among my army of loyal followers!" As she spoke, more sarcophagus lids began to opening up.

Arising from their graves were still more of the sickly undead housecats, but accompanying them were their larger plains cat sized cousins.

There had to be at least two dozen of the smaller cats augmented by a handful of the larger ones, all of them arrayed against Mirri.

Sure enough, she was lone vampire against a small army of undead feline servants, whatever bizarre powers Tiyet had... Mirri was not liking the odds even a little bit.

She was actually so worried that she drove a fang into her own lower lip as she pondered how best to handle the situation, wondering when Tiyet would unleash the feline horde upon her.

There was nothing for it, just like back with the ghost cat, if she tried and failed then she was no worse off than if she did not try at all.

Mirri Catwarrior opened herself mind, body, and whatever sanguine essence had taken up residence within her corpse.

She called upon all the living predators of the world to come to her aid, for she, a vampire, was the greatest hunter of them all, and so deserved their allegiance. The problem was that though she had the power to dominate living animals, she could not call them into existence.

That was Mirri's curse.

For all her ability to walk around in the sunlight, to sleep in bed or coffin at any hour of the day or night, things she'd heard not even the legendary Strahd Von Zarovich could achieve... there was a price.

There was always a price to pay for power in the land of the Mists, it didn't matter if the power was for good or ill.

Mirri's fate would always be tied to the living she was so adept at immitating but not actually among. Any other vampire would have had at least an even chance to turn Tiyet's own undead minions against her.

Mirri couldn't, she couldn't control so much as a single zombie louse, let alone the collection of crypt cats Tiyet had organized agianst her. The only kind of minons that Mirri could command were those that lived, and here in very heart of this long buried tomb Mirri figured she'd be lucky to get a couple of centipedes.

CRACK!

"MERROW?" Announced a somewhat confused but otherwise unhurt and completely alive housecat that had been contained within a now broken jar.

Confusion vanished from the cat's green eyes as it suddenly turned in the direction of its undead cousins and hissed, its fur puffing up in anger.

"How cute, one lone kitten against my entire glaring. Your black power to twist the minds of my living servants offers you no chance of victory, only still greater torment at the paws of Bastet!" Tiyet mocked, amused by how precious little Mirri's ability to control living predators had come to.

Then there was a sound from above, like the creaking of a rusty chain links starting to give, and a thought occurred to Mirri.

Those weren't some sort of mystical light source hanging up above, or at least not solely a mystical light source.

No, they were was jars, jars of preservation.

Lots of jars preservation, and down here they had been spared the trials which had broken so many of the first set they'd encountered.

Jars of preservation which contained still living felines who were no longer content to sit passively and wait to be released. Now they strove with all their might to break free and answer the call of their new mistress.

More and more of the jars rained downwards like divine judgment, though delivered in the form of pottery instead of the more conventional lightning bolt. Cat after cat was left standing unharmed in the wreckage of the magical artifact crafted to keep them from suffering the passage of time.

WHAM!

That was no ordinary jar of preservation, it might have better been described as a "cauldron of preservation" the thing was at least five feet tall if it was an inch!

Say better it had been five feet tall, now it was just a huge pile of broken splinters surrounding an honest to goodness tawny furred lioness.

WHAM!

WHAM!

WHAM!

WHAM!

Still more of the huge things broke free from the chains that had held them locked in place for who knew how long. A small pride of lionesses soon stood side by side with the housecats, one and all glaring defiance out at the undead beasts Tiyet commanded.

Mirri couldn't help herself, she actually pumped her fist in delight like a giddy little girl at this unexpected turn of fortune.

Then she turned her gaze reverently up towards the domed ceiling of the room.

"Kali, you know I've always been one of your faithful followers what with the killing, the maiming, and manipulation but... right now, if I can be open with you, practitioner to patron deity... Bastet is making as really persuasive argument for converting." Mirri had to admit.

Then she returned her mind to the task at hand.

The two undead women locked gazes yet again, each also seeking to survey the other's force of feline guardians.

On Mirri's side of the field, was her lot of scruffy recently released still living cats who as far as she could tell were no different from any that might have been found chasing mice in a market place. Well except for the fact that under her control they were united in a way no normal gathering of cats could be.

The lionesses at least seemed to cut a somewhat more imposing figure, but even they were seemingly just ordinary examples of their kind.

On the other side, Tiyet's crypt cats were decadency given (rotting) flesh.

Not a single one lacked for some form of expensive adornment be it silver ear rings, jewel encrusted collars, or even golden bells about their necks, the latter showing how they were such cherished pets that they need not concern themselves with hunting in the slightest.

The great crypt cats were even more elaborately bedecked with finery, each having bright golden headdresses at the very least. It was as if someone had decided that the brilliance of their accessories could hide the simple and obvious fact that the beasts were now cruel decaying mockeries of the sleek graceful creatures they had been in life.

This was clearly not a turn of events that Tiyet had planned for and Mirri was determined to press her advantage.

"TOUCH NOT THE CAT WITHOUT A GLOVE!" For the first time in her unlife, Mirri bellowed the Kantrar family motto loudly and proudly.

The words resounded throughout the chamber, echoing back to a time as ancient as Tiyet herself, to a time when nobility was not about castles, money, or servants, but how big a pile of slain foes you could leave in your wake.

Mirri charged forward, the vampire easily moving faster than the swiftest lioness.

She hurdled up the stairs to the dais while Tiyet waved her hands and suddenly right in front of Mirri arose a pair of ghostly oversized cat paws with claws extended.

They slashed at her, and there was nothing ethereal in the least about the way they cut through her outfit and left gashes in her skin.

"I hate magic..." She growled to herself, but took some satisfaction in the fact that the distance between her and Tiyet was decreasing rapidly.

She leaped forward, intending to pounce on the mummy and force her to the ground.

As she was sailing through the air one of the rotting dark furred beasts jumped up to meet her, either out of simple feline hunting instinct or a warped desire to protect the priestess. Either way, it didn't matter much, all Mirri could think about was the flashing claws and snapping yellowed teeth.

SLAM!

Getting nailed by those spectral claws had slowed Mirri down more than she had though, and one of the lionesses had caught up with her. Seeing the black beast take to the air Mirri's lioness pounced as well, slamming headfirst into the oversized crypt cat, knocking it aside and viciously tearing at its rotting guts.

Mirri didn't have time to be grateful, she could only focus on her own opposite number. Just like her own advancing clowder, Mirri was driven by a single burning desire, to hunt.

Tiyet tried to cast another spell, but her efforts fell apart as Mirri landed directly before her and let loose with an uppercut that probably could have felled a bear.

Tiyet was knocked back and Mirri's entire body thrilled to the sensation of dry bones shattering to dust beneath her first. Unfortunately being a mummy Tiyet was immune to pain, even worse the broken (say better yet demolished) jaw somehow didn't keep her talking.

"You might have claimed me in my mortal life, but your fangs will not have me in this one serpent!" She declared dramatically and Mirri winced as she felt those stupid ghostly claws catch up with her raking her back this time around.

"What part of you do I have to break to make you shut up?" Mirri demanded as she dashed forward and dragged Tiyet to the ground.

She'd been thinking about this all the way here, no fangs, no fancy vitality draining abilities, she was going to have to win this fight on pure strength and speed by pulverizing Tiyet into a pile of bone splinters.

That was her game plan, what was Tiyet's?

The mummy's hands seized Mirri tightly and magic flowed through the undead priestess of Bastet.

Blue light glistened on her finger tips and forced its way into Mirri.

The minor tears that those mystical claws had torn were suddenly split wide open. Nor were they the only ones, all over the vampire's body, new wounds were forcing themselves open as blood began to leak from her eyes and nostrils as well.

Tiyet cackled triumphantly and rose to her feet knocking Mirri aside like a broken toy.

"Pitiful creature! See how your own body rebels against my healing touch? One as dark as you can not within stand the light of Bastet!" Tiyet cackled as Mirri's form was racked convulsions and she coughed up still more crimson upon the floor.

Mirri struggled to rise to her feet after bracing herself against the floor, just in time for Tiyet to deliver a kick that knocked her flat again.

"On the ground! On the ground! That is where you belong serpent. You and all fanged beasts scheme and plot against myself and my mistress Bastet, but your evil schemes will come to naught in the end! No scaled fiend shall escape my boot, no snake shall be spared my fury!" She punctuated each and every sentence with yet another kick to Mirri's face sending her baddy battered body rolling this way and that across the dais.

"See how your fowl minions have..." Tiyet paused at this point as she discovered that her force of undead felines had not fared quite as well as she had expected.

It was a point driven home by the fact that there were several wounded but still living housecats arching their backs and hissing at her in anger.

Tiyet was discomforted for only a moment, then simply made a sweeping motion with her hands not even bothering to use magic.

"You blind fools can not raise paws against your true mistress. No cat worthy of the name can harm me!" To prove her point she stepped forward, and sure enough the cats began to edge away from her.

While Tiyet was displaying her ability to overawe even Mirri's mind controlled cats, the vampiress found herself being approached by a large tawny furred shape. The lioness lowered its head and licked its tongue against one of the many wounds in Mirri's side.

"Thanks for trying girl. You and your friends have done everything I could ask for, you gave me a chance... don't worry I'm not quite done yet." Mirri comforted lioness.

The stupid beastie just kept licking hopelessly at Mirri's wounds and then looked deeply into her eyes.

Vampire powers were not suppose to work like this, she had control, she told the creatures what to do, she couldn't tell what they thought, they probably couldn't even think while they were under her thrall.

All that she had come to believe since her rebirth, and yet somehow when she looked into the lioness' eyes she knew what it wanted her to do.

"Seriously? Your head is as empty as James'!" Mirri berated the creature.

Just speaking his name aloud was enough to make the decision for her, she could lay here and hope that Tiyet kept spouting off self congratulatory gibberish while Mirri's body slowly pulled itself together or she could take some drastic actions.

"Good kitty... best kitty..." Mirri whispered to the lioness as her hands reached up and scratched the creature behind the ears, causing it to chuff in happiness.

When her hand withdrew a few seconds the lioness was already dead.

Not even blood this time, her touch had drained the pure essence of life itself from the beast. That sort of thing couldn't sate her daily hunger for blood, couldn't make her feel full... but it could make her feel whole, could make her feel powerful.

Mirri rose to her feet with liquid grace her flesh knitting itself closed with speed that even that impressed even her.

"Hey mouse breath, if you're going kill someone, finish the job!" Mirri reminded the priestess.

"Now then, are you ready for round two, or do you need a moment to powder your nose first?" Mirri mocked.

"This time my magic to mend wounds will free your tormented soul from its prison, by tearing your body into shreds!" Tiyet hissed.

The two undead women raced at one another, the priestess' palms already aglow with mystical energy once again. Mirri saw them coming towards her and doubted she would be able to recover from another brush with them.

So she spun to the side and dodged Tiyet's grasping hands before preforming a textbook elbow strike, driving the crook of her right limb into Tiyet's left shoulder.

Bone chips filled the air and one of Tiyet's arms was wrenched free from its socket and dropped to the ground.

"Answer me this pretty pretty princess... how do you plan to channel all that mystical energy into me, when you don't have fingers?" Mirri inquired, before dancing around Tiyet, always keeping just out of reach of her remaining arm.

"By the way Tiyet, do you know what I have that you don't? Besides the obvious stuff of course; like a pretty face, no delusions in regards to my own malicious nature, and the love of James Firecat?" Sure enough, that last jibe struck home and for a brief moment Tiyet was too busy trying to think of a rejoinder to properly to defend herself.

That brief moment was all Mirri needed, she dashed forward, hefted Tiyet up over her head.

"MUSCLES BITCH!" The vampiress declared triumphantly.

Before Tiyet could try and seize some part of her body, Mirri cast her down upon the dais with all the strength she could muster.

Bones cracked and splintered, dry leathery flesh was tenderized, and a look of infinite rage was shot up at Mirri from Tiyet's empty eye sockets.

"Now let me give you another quick lesson, you don't kick someone while they are down, you stomp on them." Mirri pointed out, darting around to Tiyet's head and bringing her white booted foot down upon that fancy headdress she was wearing.

Whatever mystical powers it possessed it didn't seem quite up to the task of protecting its wearer from getting their skull crushed by a pissed off vampiress.

"This is for all the random people you've hurt because at least I fucking wanted to become a monster, what is your excuse? WHAM

"This one is for nearly killing my companions with that stupid cat statue and heart beat trap because nobody hurts my minions but me!" WHUMP

"This one is for James because if you touched so much as one hair on his furry ears I'll trace your essence down into the next world and keep kicking the shit out of you there!" POW

"This is for that stupid fucking lion I had to energy drain because for some reason that made me fell sad, and I hate feeling sad! Hell I'm undead I shouldn't even have to 'feel' anything!" SNAP

"AND THIS IS FOR ME... because if you haven't noticed yet, I'm a sadistic bitch." CRUNCH!

That last boot stomp finished up the job of transforming Tiyet's body into a fine white powder.

"There, lets see you come back from that." Mirri scoffed.

Then she heard a strange humming noise and saw the gems engraved in Tiyet's sarcophagus start to glow.

"OH NO, NOT THIS TIME!" A Catwarrior once burned was twice fearful and she departed from the dais as quickly before the magical aura which surged into being while Tiyet rested burnt her to ash.

If it had managed to give her such a fright just from simply trying intrude upon its periphery she had no desire at all to experience what it might do to her were she caught near the spell's epicenter.

"GET OUT OF THERE!" She called up to the cats wondering why she was bothering to shout when the animals were surely still being dominated by her vampiric will.

Her feline forces were in precious little shape for fast movement though. None of them had come through the battle without wounds, and already the foul nature of the crypt cats was making itself evident as Mirri could see scratches and bite marks ringed by red inflammation or in some cases even oozing malignant puss.

It was a stark reminder of just how vile some of the contagions those mummified monsters could posses, and what damage they could do to living flesh.

They were just ordinary cats, there was no way they were going to be able to get off the dais fast enough before the magical spell could come to full power... and that fact made Mirri so... sad...?

That was crazy.

You didn't feel sad about the animals you forced to do your bidding, they existed to act as instruments of your supreme vampiric will. You didn't go around getting upset if the angry mob got lucky and managed to slay some of the wolf pack you dominated into hounding them, and that was a fact she knew from experience!

"Mirri you best not get all bloody eyed because a bunch of your 'furry friends' got killed. So help me, you just beat a undead priestess to unundeath, reach down in your big girl panties and find yourself some ovaries!" The vampire reminded herself.

She'd especially need to do it given that this light show probably meant that Tiyet was about to come back to "life" yet again, and this time she'd probably be slinging every single positive energy magic spell she could think of in Mirri's direction right off the bat.

As what remained of her animal army began to slowly and cautiously descend from the dais on wounded limbs Mirri could not bring herself to look away from them. Those creatures had served her no more loyally than countless numbers of the rats, bats, wolves, at one time or another, hell this wasn't even the first time she had dominated the animals who she had renamed herself after!

So why did she feel her guts about ready to drop out from under her as the wave of magic continue to grow outwards until it washed over them all... and did nothing.

The magic spell expanded beyond the cats and affected them not in the least.

There were a lot of reasonable explanations for that, after all it would make sense for a priestess of Bastet to allow her resting place to be guarded by felines both alive and undead, and the spell had doubtlessly first been designed by someone remarkably less bloodthirsty than Tiyet.

All that was true and yet...

"Bastet I know you're probably not listening because lets face it, that's not the sort of things gods, especially nice gods like you do for people like me. But so long as you seem to be handing out miracles like bandages at a gathering of hemophiliacs, could I have my suck buddy back?" Mirri suggested.

CREAK!

A hidden trapdoor in the floor of the room back behind the dais opened up and a somewhat bedraggled but otherwise unharmed James Firecat emerged.

The staff of Bastet was still gripped tightly in both hands and he looked around before shifting it to a one handed grip so that he could wave in her direction.

"Sincerest greetings Miriam, my heart swells to see you once more, have you been fairing well?" He asked completely calmly, as if he they had last seen one another before going to bed instead of him jumping into the arms of an evil priestess.

Mirri buried her face in her hands overcome by regret.

"I could have asked to be made a matriarch, I could have asked for a river of blood in a magical vial of holding, I could have asked for anything! Kali please forgive me, I just realized why I can't handle being in the thrall of a goddess with a sense of humor, I'll take good old fashioned reliable cruelty any day of the week!" Her minor break down down over with, she then raised a hand and waved back.

End Chapter

AN: Yo dawg, I heard you liked cat fights, so I put a catfight in your catfight! Of course I could have also had Mirri and Tiyet both use their abilities to transform into feline forms during the battle, at which point we'd reach Inception levels of cat fighting.

Anyway, yes the surplus of living cats in Tiyet's resurrection room is a detail added by me in part to help Mirri (granted Tiyet was never meant to be fought 1v1...). Though in truth having read the book Tiyet's list of spells is actually super unimpressive for the purposes of fighting Mirri (with the exception of "Heal") since it is made up mostly of negative energy attacks (which as we know heal undead) and various mental manipulation spells which while not going to backfire would still achieve absolutely nothing if used on Mirri/any other vampire.

That said, while Mirri dispatching the Crypt Cats one by one by one to force her way to Tiyet would have been sort of awesome (cat tossing charge?), honestly given that the original module did include those two still living cats in the preservation jars... well once that particular seed got planted it was hard for me to keep it from growing into something much more.

Also it does say in the adventure that whoever is kind to the the two cats (Count and Countess) would be granted a minor boon from Bastet (which raises a lot of questions given how divine intervention is supposed to work (or to be more exact not work) in Ravenloft) and Mirri let both of them out.

Now, take a moment and ask yourself... can you really hope to find any other story where a vampire effectively deep strikes a feline army into being? When I realized I had a chance like that, I just couldn't let it slip past me...

F**k, lets make it a little more awesome.

Imperial Guard Cat: There are too many of them!

Chaos Crypt Cat: We are chaos, chaos is strong!

Chaos Crypt Plains Cat: We are legion!

Imperial Guard Commissar Cat: Stand fast! Do you want your first life to last forever?

WHUMP

(Cauldron of preservation lands)

Imperial Guard Cat: Is that?

Second Imperial Guard Cat: The empress' angles of death ride with us in battle today!

(Cauldron of preservation cracks open)

Space Marine Lioness: Follow me daughters of Bastet, this night our enemies shall feel the fangs of the holy cat! 

Anyway, you may have noticed we're doing something a little different this time. Instead of an "Epilogue" this book is going to have two final chapters, or maybe two final chapters and an Epilogue as well. Why do I go for two "final" chapters? Because there's still more of this story that needs to unfold.

I'll explain why this is later on when I do the entire book review.

Instead, what do I want to talk about?

Well, how about we talk about the mechanics of fighting in D&D? 

Mirri has a lot of advantages going into this fight because Tiyet is apparently what we might call a "social mage" having a great many mind affecting spells and as we all should know by now, mind manipulating spells don't work on vampires.

Likewise, Tiyet's touch can spread an especially virulent version of mummy rot which aside from its normal horrible properties also allow her to cause whatever limb she infects to have spasms further weakening her foes. That's great and all, but once again vampire, no con score means that Mirri is completely immune to diseases, even magical ones.

Tiyet by her seventh awakening (the one that Mirri is fighting) is completely immune to any weapon that is not magical. Well a vampire's natural weapons (Mirri's bare hands) count as magical weapons, not to mention she's a single classed battle dancer, and that class allows you manifest an aura which treat your hands as magical weapons anyway.

Also if you couldn't figure out what was going on with that lion who Mirri temporarily killed, the crunch of it works out like this because I have too much free time and actually find it sort of fun to write this stuff out...

Tiyet casts a "Heal" spell on Mirri which functions as a "Harm" because she is undead. Mirri being a vampire takes half damage from all spells (Van Richten's guide to vampires page 52) (that or she makes her Will Save, either explanation gives the same result) and so she is left at 1d8 above half hit points instead of just 1d4 above dead (well 1d4 above zero since she's already "dead") as Tiyet suspects, since she doesn't have a perfect knowledge of vampires.

Tiyet proceeds to whale on Mirri making use of her supernatural strength to try and pummel her the rest to the way to non-existence. Tiyet fails to grasp that neither mummies or priests get to automatically treat their natural weapons as magical.

Tiyet is inflicting superficial damage at most (in third edition Mirri is prone but not helpless or immobilized, and has +2/20 point damage reduction, or 20 points of damage reduction versus anything that isn't magic/a +2 magical weapon and maintains all her dance battler AC bonuses (she's at -4 due to being prone but can still roll around to try and avoid kicks) along with her natural armor class. (Mirri's AC is probably around 23 against Tiyet, base is always 10, +6 natural armor,+3 for dodge bonus (+1 for the feat +2 for her levels in dance battler) + 4 for dex 20 +4 charisma 20 -4 for being prone) and basing Tiyet's stats on the standard Mummy Lord (that's fair enough given that a Mummy Lord is CR 15 and Mirri being a level 12 Dance Battler "old" (Ravenloft 3rd edition term) vampire is CR 15 also) which has +11 to attack.

That means Tiyet is actually hitting Mirri a little less than once every other attack.

Those attacks deal 1d6+12 or say 15 damage on average. All of that gets eaten by Mirri's DR, and she also recovers 6 hit points a turn. So on average if Tiyet kept just trying to kill Mirri with her slam attack alone Mirri is probably actually getting healthier!

When Tiyet thinks she's left Mirri suitably humiliated, she moves away from her and then takes a round to gloat/cast a cause serious wounds spell on herself to regain the hit points she lost to Mirri.

The lioness comes to Mirri and being completely under her mental control is helpless before her.

Mirri then delivers a coupe de grace energy drain with her bare hands.

Because the coup de grace is an automatic critical success, Mirri drains twice as many levels as normal, bestowing four negative levels on the 5 HD lioness which was already hurt in the battle with the crypt cats, killing it.

Mirri has taken the Improved Energy Drain Feat which means that not only does each negative level she bestows give her a handful of temporary hit points, but also +1 on all skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws for an hour. Also given that she has Life Drain feat and 20 charisma add another five hit points for each level. So she gains 60 temporary hit points and another +4 to her base attack bonus when she goes after Tiyet the second time.

When Mirri attacks, because when using your bare hands a high base attack bonus does not give multiple attacks the way it does with a weapon she's limited to three attacks a turn, two fists, and one with her vampire slam.

Her fists do deal 2D6 +4 (Mirri went from being strength 12 as a human to strength 18 as a vampire and has weapon specialization unarmed strike) (on average 10) damage per each fist she connects with and an 1D6 + 4 (average 7) with her Slam attack. A Mummy Lord has DR -/5 or just flat damage reduction five against any sort of attack, but no fast healing so when Mirri lands a hit odds are she's doing at least some damage.

This is without taking into the account the advantages conferred on Mirri by the spells /items the rest of the group gave her.

In short, there's a reason why it's possible to say that in a straight up fist fight Mirri is likely to win.

Some of you may be wondering, why didn't Tiyet just "Heal" Mirri again? Well remember she's not a spontaneous caster like Florence, she needs to set up her spells at the start of her day, and so she didn't decide "I think I'll take all anti-undead spells when only one sixth of the group that is invading my tomb is undead!" Which is a fairly reasonable approach, she gets 4 sixth level spells, and only took heal as one of them.


	13. Chapter 13

Monster Party Book Four: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck...

Final Chapter (Part 2): Everybody's pickin' up on that feline beat, 'cause everything else is obsolete!

"So... how exactly did you get here?" Mirri asked figuring that divine intervention probably (probably) wasn't the answer.

"Tis a simple enough tale..." James replied.

XXX XXX XXX

James Firecat lay ensconced in luxury. They had certainly known how to "die well" back in Tiyet's time given all the fine fabrics, and gleaming trinkets which surrounded the priestess.

As for the priestess herself, she was running cold but firm fingers through fur of James' head in an affectionate manner. Right now James was in his halfway form, a shape that was neither cat nor human, but a blend of both.

For most lycanthropes this form tended to be of a monstrous size, larger than either human or animal, though James was an exception. His current shape was larger than a housecat of course, but he was more or less the exact same size as he was as a human, maybe an inch or two larger, but certainly nowhere near the size of the traditional hybrid lycanthrope.

"All these and more deserve to be yours my pretty little kitty." Tiyet wheezed out, her voice rough and untested, clearly she had lain in this crypt far longer than Mirri had ever spent in her coffin.

"We just need to get rid of all the nasty humans who insist on being so mean to all my fury followers! The stupid apes will one and all get what's coming to them! Their blood will flow like milk, their cries of horror will be like so many trapped mice, the age of the cat must come to this land, must come to this entire world!" Tiyet vowed never letting the conviction of her words interrupt the slow and steady movement of her fingers.

"You know, you could just stop." James piped up, and boy THAT did stop her fingers cold (well colder than usual).

"What?" Hissed Tiyet through skinless lips.

"I was not talking about the scratching, I was finding that most delightful!" James confided to the undead priestess.

"I was referencing, well, you know, the whole 'age of the cat' concept. Know Tiyet, I've traveled far and wide, I'm not as stupid or as blind as some people might suspect. I have witnessed humans mistreating cats, ones who find it amusing to do horrific things to animals, simply because they are unable to fight back, have no means to ask other people to help them, their mews of pain fall only upon ears that are deaf to them.

I've observed the sight of a housecat coated in tar by a man, and then lit it on fire." James' voice was a half choked sob at this point, his eyes squinted tight and watery.

He took several deep breaths to regain his composure and then strove onward.

"It's horrific... but you one must approach it on a case by case basis, maligning or punishing an entire group due to the actions of a few members it, to do such a thing has never brought any joy to my heart." James declared with conviction.

"Besides, if you really care about presenting a world which is best for felines everywhere, are you sure your 'age of the cat' will do it?" As James said those words, he rose to his feet and hopped off of Tiyet's lap.

His red furred paws began to beat a meaningless circle around the room as he paced and talked.

"The 'age of the ape' as you call it, has been as much a blessing for us cats as it has been for the 'monkeys' themselves.

It all began when they started to gather food in one place for long periods of time, and in turn rats and mice began to gather to try and feast upon that food... then we came.

We came forth from the desert. We came forth and with our claws that catch and teeth that bite, and reaped a terrible vengeance upon those rodents.

It was never our intention to help the humans, not at first, it was just about going where our food was. Humans in making food plentiful for the rodents made the vermin gather together in numbers the likes of which we could not believe.

We winnowed their numbers without a care for the grain that the humans sought to protect, all that mattered was the hunt, was the feast.

Once that initial glorious blow had been struck and in turn the grain was protected the rats dispersed and we were ready to do the same, we followed the rats after all.

Then, however, then, one very smart human had a brilliant idea.

With next year's harvest the rats would return, and sure enough sooner or later we would have come of our own accord without any human intervention.

The very smart idea changed all of that however, because that human took a strip of meat from some fallen domestic beast, and placed it before our paws in supplication.

It was an offering unto us, the first most important offering given unto Bastet.

The humans could not stand to see us go, could not stand the thought of trying to live without us, so they brought forth meat to eat, brought forth water to drink, brought forth shelters from the stinging winds and chill nights, brought forth concoctions to kill flees and gnats, brought forth medicine and magic with which to bind our flesh and heal wounds, and brought milk for our kittens.

All of these gifts humans brought forth so that we the glorious feline saviors of their civilization who had delivered them from the horrors of the rodent horde would remain their eternal guardians.

You must understand Tiyet, if you wipe our humans everywhere, you destroy that as well.

You eradicate thousands of years of one of the most successful partnerships to ever exist in the world, for we cats were not broken before the leash as wolves were to become dogs. We remain true to our inner wild spirit, we remain the terror that stalks in the night, the paws that pin rodents to the floor!

You may be a mighty priestess Tiyet, but are you powerful enough to look after an entire world full of cats who will suddenly want for the things that are rightfully ours in return for the services we've grant humanity?

Do you really think a world where we one misstep lead to a thorn becoming wedged in a paw which will remain there, constantly causing pain till simple irritation gives way to infection, is a superior to one in which a human will notice a cat's limp, remove the thorn, clean the wound and bandage the paw?

Are you doing what you are doing because it is really what cats want, or because it is what you want? If it's because its what you want, then why not just... stop? Stop, and let us cats enjoy the adoration and offerings we have justly won from humanity?" As James delivered those dramatic lines he finally stopped pacing and sat back on two legs trying to look as cerebral as it was possible to in his current shape.

"MONGREL! ASP AT MY BOSOM! SNAKE THAT WOULD DECIEVE BY CLOAKING ITS SCALES IN FAIR FURR! BEAST UNFIT TO WALK UPON SO MUCH AS A SINGLE LEG LET ALONE FOUR! I WILL FLAY THE SKIN FROM YOUR BODY AND REVEAL THE COLD FLESH WHICH LAYS BENATH! I WILL YANK THE FORKED TONGUE FROM YOUR THROAT AND CRUSH YOU BENEATH MY HEEL!" It seemed that Tiyet was something less than fully sold on James' beliefs concerning the state cross species relations between homo sapiens and felis catus domestica.

James weathered Tiyet's verbal torrent and just smiled back at her.

"Why are you so perturbed? Haven't you heard that the ways to worship Bastet are more numerous than the whiskers on a cat's face?" He reminded the priestess.

"NO LONGER!" Tiyet announced rising to her feet clutching the staff of Bastet tightly in her hands.

"For too long have I slumbered, for too long have Bastet's followers fractiously argued amongst themselves and ignored that rats, serpents, and other vermin which surrounded them! All shall be united under my velvet paw, those who will not serve me in life shall do so in death instead... and that applies to cats just as much as the foul apes." Tiyet warned James.

James Firecat twisted his head to the side, and flashed the priestess a smile full of gleaming white incredibly sharp fangs.

"You know... you showed considerable interested in my neck before this unpleasantness. Do you desire to learn how I acquired these disfigurements?" James offered.

For a moment Tiyet's fury was abated and she leaned forward intently determined to know how surely James had once been struck down by some vicious monster exactly as she had been.

As her eyes focused intently on the twin puncture marks James kept right on smiling at her.

He walked forward so that she could get a good look, and there was a soft clicking sounds, as the shape of legs altered slightly. His knees were suddenly bending backwards instead of forwards, but he didn't seem to be in any pain.

Then his leg rocketed forward with blinding speed and struck Tiyet in the face.

There was simply no other way to describe it, the mummy's head... exploded.

Flesh, bone chips, and other viscera flew in all direction.

"My name is Maahes, 'he who is true beside her', how do you think I got them?!" James shouted as Tiyet's body toppled forward and turned to dust.

"Now then, you clearly have no further need of this." James reflected, picking up the Staff of Bast from where it had fallen. He swiftly returned himself to his normal human shape and holding the staff closely looked around the room.

"Alas, I was so utterly certain that at this very moment I would be mystically returning to the sides of my companions. Clearly I had not thought this matter through quite as deeply as I should have." Reflected James Maahes Firecat, before getting to work searching the room for hidden passages, after all no one would build a room that could only be reached by magic... would they?

XXX XXX XXX

Unfortunately, while James had been giving Mirri a brief recounting of the last hour or so of his life still more crypt cats (luckily only the small ones this time around) had emerged from the sort of back up hidden sarcophagus that only a truly deranged mind would bother to include with still more bottles of glowing mist.

The pair had been so absorbed in catching up that neither one of them had noticed these cats arrival until it was too late.

They knocked over the bottles, the bottles smashed and Tiyet rose form the coffin yet again breathing deeply of the fumes.

"I really hope the others get over their paralysis soon, this might take a while..." Mirri muttered to herself, wondering just how many times she'd have to kill Tiyet to make it stick, and how many times could she actually pull it off?

If the undead princess just kept coming back, well Tiyet was bound to get lucky sooner or later...

Before Mirri could rush into combat once more James strode forward confidently, and fixed the mummy with the most drop dead serious stare Mirri had ever seen him give anyone.

"It's time to end this Tiyet.

The ways to worship Bastet are more numerous than the whiskers on a cat's face, but I possess a sneaking suspicion none of them involve murdering her servants so that you can remake them as twisted, corrupted, mockeries of all things cat. I will willing to abide by your crypt cats at first.. people die and they don't always stay dead, just look my dear Miriam..." He threw off a quick head-bob at this point before returning to the subject at hand.

"Granted she looks far less decrepit than they, but such is hardly their fault, since they're mummified rather than vampire cats, though how they look is beside the point. What matters is that when you told me, your 'age of the cat' must involve transforming ALL cats into crypt cats... such is beyond the pale." James warned her.

Tiyet fixed her own gaze (though the lack of eyes made it somewhat less impressive) upon James.

"You will..." She began.

James interrupted her with a swing of the Staff of Bastet.

It didn't hit Tiyet, it didn't even come close, instead the cat shaped adornment on its end effortlessly scooped up Tiyet's mystical headdress (it had fallen unattended to the floor in the process of Mirri beating her face in during their previous battle) and knocked it into the air.

It sailed up, flipped end over end, and landed perfectly balanced atop James' head as if it had been made just for him. There surely must have been something mystical about the mask (beyond the obvious stuff like deflecting lightning bolts) because it had always seemed to depict a female cat when Tiyet wore it, and yet on James' it was clearly a tom.

"It is you who will do nothing, nothing but repent your wicked ways!" James insisted.

In response Tiyet summoned up another pair of spectral claws and turned them loose on him.

Their passing did not even stir his garments, let alone mar his flesh.

"Fuck that, for my faith is a shield proof against your blandishments." James declared with a dramatic flourish of his arm which produced his icon of Bastet and easily looped the string he had attached to it around his neck.

There was something decidedly unearthly about him now, and it left Mirri rooted to the spot.

She didn't even try to help, right now what she possibly do to help? Even that simple black statue he was wearing now seemed to gleam like finest onyx.

Her magic having failed her Tiyet flew at James at in a seemingly near mindless rage. She wrapped her arms around the staff trying to drag it from his grip.

"GIVE IT TO ME! GIVE ME MY YOUTH, GIVE ME MY FLESH, GIVE ME MY PLEASURE!" Tiyet screamed as she tugged with all the strength her limbs still held.

James grip on the staff was unshakeable, he didn't even try to pull it away from her or force the priestess back. Instead, he simply stood there and leveled a pair of brown eyes into Tiyet, they were both filled to the brim with contempt.

"You betrayed Bastet." He declared ominously as the bottommost section of the staff began to glow.

"Vous êtes un traître de Bastet, you betrayed Bastet." He repeated the words again, first in his native Low Mordentish, then in Vassi as the glow slowly began to work its way up the entire length of the staff.

"Vous êtes un traître de Bastet, YOU BETRAYED BASTET." James did not shout the word, not really, shouting implied emotion, this was something else, it was as if he had somehow packed pure concentrated force into his words in a way any spell slinger would have envied.

As soon as he finished speaking the light reached the portions of the staff that Tiyet was holding onto and smoke began to rise from her hands as bright green sparks flickered among her bandages.

Mirri could not hide a smile at that sight, clearly it was Tiyet's turn to taste the blessed fires of her goddess. Yet for all the trauma it caused her, she still clung on with grim determination.

"VOUS, ÊTES, TRAITRE, DE, BASTET, YOU, BETRAYED, BASTET!" Now the glow passed through the parts of the staff that James was holding onto, and nothing happened.

The staff which blazed with the heat of an inferno in Tiyet's hands was just a piece of wood in the paws of James Firecat.

Tiyet watched his red gloves helplessly willing for him to show some sign of the same suffering she was enduring just to hold the relic of her goddess. There was none at all, and her grip gave way as the flames consumed her hands to the point of leaving them utterly useless.

" _ **VOUS, ÊTES, TRAITRE, DE, BASTET,**_ _ **YOU, BETRAYED, BASTET!**_ " James insisted before swinging the holy relic around with blinding speed and driving the cat figured which adorned the top straight into Tiyet's stomach, instantly causing green fires to erupt there as well.

" _ **FACE YOUR PUNISHMENT FOR OPPOSING THE LORD OF SLAUGHTER!**_ " James decreed and lashed out yet again, the staff knocking Tiyet's head right off of her body and birthing still more flames upon her dry garments.

Instead of simply falling to dust this time the priestess body practically exploded in ash as the flames devoured it.

Then James turned to the sarcophagus that she had emerged from, he brought his staff down upon it, and one solid blow alone was enough to crumple it beyond repair.

"The time has come to let Bastet's blessed tongue fall upon this place and lick clean its festering wounds. Act me through me Bastet, let us cast out sickness, cast out evil, cast out unlife!" James cried out.

"Hey some of us are perfectly happy with unlife!" Mirri tired to interrupt but it did her no good.

James swung the staff again and the floor of the temple seemed to give way as if he was not so much bashing a hole in it as planting the staff somewhere it had always been meant to be.

There was a blast of blinding light and Mirri was hurled backwards, slamming into a wall so hard her head swam.

End Chapter.

FN: Did you see the Indiana Jones reference? If you didn't you weren't looking very hard. Also, this is gonna be another of those chapters that I review again before I post a second time after a day or so, I don't know why, but I'm having even more trouble than normal writing "Maahes" dialogue in this chapter.

Moral of the story, I'm never going to write another story where a character doesn't talk like themselves, because I kept writing James as James rather than as "Maahes" so I have to go back and rewrite it during these revision.

Also "James" is correct that as far as I can tell the literal interpretation of the name Maahes in the version of Egyptian where it first came about is "He who is true beside her".

I'd be willing to bet that the "her" being mentioned by it is Bastet, though James Maahes Firecat would probably argue that the "her" is Mirri, even if Mirri no doubt is still feeling somewhat raw over his behavior in the last few hours.

Also yes, Tiyet is now dead, very, very dead.

As a High Priestess of Bastet she was given nine lives, (an arrangement that the Dark Powers decided to "honor" in their own special way) with her mortal life counts as one of them.

If you were wondering why Tiyet's magic fails against James when he's wearing the mask/headdress, it's actually pretty simple. The mask/headdress is consecrated in the name/nature Bastet. Bastet is a CG goddess, Tiyet is CE, the dark powers may still be giving her magical powers because they find her amusing, but they can't give her anything approaching "Bastet Magic" which is the only kind that can effect someone wearing the mask/headdress.

As for James' leg bending backwards, being a lycanthrope gives him a lot more morphic flexibility than most people, but that sort of physical arrangement (a knee that bends backwards) is how ostriches end up with kicks that can kill lions.


	14. Chapter 14

Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck...

Epilogue: You've suffered in the darkness, I'll suck the pain right out. So come and taste the reason I'm nothing like the rest!

By the time Mirri was finally able to clear her head the lighting in the room had returned to normal, and it wasn't the only thing either.

"Um... you all are looking very... healthy, that's a good thing... I think..." Mirri stumbled her way verbally through the discover that those cats who were still loyal to her were now completely healed.

There was no sign of either the wounds inflicted on them or the terrible diseases they been suffering from mere moments ago. Determined to make sure that James was equally unharmed she headed up the stairs to the dais yet again. As she crested the final steps she was near dumbfounded by what she found waiting for her.

"Okay, what sort of fairytail happy ending bullshit is this?" Mirri spat out in disbelief that anything in her "life", in anyone's life could be this aggressive saccharin.

There were no crypt cats left on the dais.

Not to say that it was devoid of feline creatures of course, there were a great many live cats up there now. Live cats who some of whom who were adorned with all manner of golden accessories just to drive the point home beyond the shadow of a doubt these cats had been undead monstrosities mere moments ago.

Not only that, but monstrosities that had been ripped apart to the point that they couldn't pose a threat to anyone or anything but Mirri's living cats it was worth keeping in mind.

A couple large black beasts were perched awkwardly on their haunches trying to dislodge golden headdresses by vigorously scratching at them. Mirri's heart almost hit a beat (please, please, please let it not have done exactly that!) and she turned her eyes down toward her own bare fingers dreading what she might find there.

Despite the mystical restorative powers of whatever James had just done her hand remained naturally pale, and beneath that ivory flesh it was possible to see veins colored cerulean as they carried oxygen free blood throughout her body.

"Oh thank goodness..." Mirri relaxed considerably upon seeing that her own blessed curse was still intact, she had spent way too much time to being a no-life queen to want to return to being an ordinary countess.

"Hey Mirri..." A somewhat weak voice cried out to her.

Not even during her fight against Tiyet had Mirri moved faster than she did at that moment.

All but instantly she was at James Firecat's side and seizing in him a embrace that might have broken the bones of a less hearty participant. James chuckled at her show of affection, and playfully extended his tongue to lick at her cheek.

"Jeez Mirri, you act like you haven't had a bite to drink in weeks. Though um... for all I know... have you had one? You know that memory is not really my strong suit, but right now things are sort of extra fuzzy wuzzy. The last thing I recall we were supposed to recover some fancy staff from a bunch of bandits... sort of like that staff right over there in fact.

Weren't we about to find it in a forest though? Right now we seem to be, well this is a very strange sort of forest, also I don't recall there being quite so many cats. In fact, I don't recall there being quite so many cats anywhere I've ever been to." James admitted, words spilling freely from his mouth.

Mirri loosened her grip slightly and ran a tongue over the two holes in James' neck that had still not closed, though she did not seek his blood at the moment, merely to caress the twin symbols of his loyalty to her.

"It's a long story James. A very long story, but that said, I've have one thing that can help sort out foggy memories is to talk about something you do know. Now I'll be honest, sometimes I sort of zone out when you talk about Bastet. Still, since you are so knowledgeable about her, does the name Maahes has anything to do with her?" She asked.

James wiggled free from Mirri's grip.

"Maahes? Sure! Maahes is the son of Bastet. Granted the identity of his father is a subject of lively debate and disagreement, some creeds hold it was Phat the god of creation and pottery, I think the Cat-Licks branch of the faith believe that he was conceived within Bastet's womb by congress with a neutered tomcat.

That's sort of silly on the face of it, but on the other hand Bastet is a goddess of fertility so I guess she could conceive a however she saw fit. Anyway, that's not really important, what we all... well almost all... well most of us agree on is that Maahes, however he came to be, was a fully divine being in nature with the body of a man and the head of a lion.

You know how I've told you that my sect believes that Bastet was a decidedly polite and kind goddess who was quick with the gifts and slow with the lightning bolts? Well once again, just about everyone agrees that Maahes wasn't like that at all. He was known to fall upon those who broke the law viciously, either cutting them to pieces with his blessed knife or simply devouring them whole.

Not that he was a bad guy or anything, he was supposed to spend just as much of his time protecting the innocent as he does punishing the guilty. If you did something that broke the tenants of Bastet he was probably a lot more likely to show up than his mother herself to handle your punishment. He was probably a lot like Alex I guess... Mirri why are you laughing?"

Vampires have very weak lungs. Years and years and years of needing to inhale and exhale only either to speak, or to better mimic some semblance of life would do that to you. Thus, as Mirri rolled about on the dais choked with laughter she had not a hope of getting a word in edgewise.

However when the laughter ended... when the laughter ended a horrible sense of purpose descended upon her.

"James there is something I need to tell you..." Mirri said, very slowly, in fact each pause before a word was longer than the one which came before it.

"I want you to know..." This time it was no pause, it was a full on stop. She just sat there unable to communicate further.

/Come on Miriam, you can do this. Also if you don't do it now, are you ever, EVER going to be able to bring yourself to?\ She reminded herself as she took in a deep breath.

"That I luuu... loooo... luvvv..." She began to stumble over the word in question, and found herself approaching it from several different possible directions, like a thief wanting to familiarize themselves with an estate before actually breaking in.

But no matter how she tried, she couldn't say it.

If she said this now, there was no going back...

/Miriam think about this, be reasonable. You've known for how long now that he's your Haldor, and you're his Gudrun? He's not going to change who he is, he's bound by oaths of honor and that sort of stuff. What binds you though? You are wild and free, you needn't be loyal to anyone but yourself... and that gives you a chance to be loyal to him above all others...\ She reminded herself, at least she thought that was her own voice, she couldn't quite be sure.

If she said this now, there was no going back... but if she didn't say it, then there was no going forward.

"James Firecat, I love your blood. I love your blood with all my unbeating heart. I love your blood more than I've loved anyone else's. I love your blood so much that I can barely take it. I want to go on loving your blood for the rest of my unlife. I know that I can't though, because you're mortal, and eventually your blood will run out. If I turned you into a vampire groom all that would achieve is making it so I wouldn't be able to love your blood properly that much sooner.

I know it is stupid, and it's bad for me, because in a couple decades at most your blood won't be around for me anymore. In the longest long run imaginable though, I'll probably just get tossed into a river, or staked through the heart and have my head cut off, or, you get the idea. So, even though it is stupid, even though it is only going to hurt me before too long, I wanted you to know just how much I love your blood, before it was too late." Mirri gushed.

/There, was that so bad?\ The voice in the back of her head asked sardonically.

/Yes it was! Also I don't know who or what you are, but we're going to have a very long talk when all this is over, I'm undead, I don't have a subconscious just like I don't have a conscience either!\ She noted bitterly.

Now that the wound had been opened though it wasn't so hard to keep things flowing.

She began to undo her jacket and pulled her shirt off leaving her naked from the waist up other than a strip of cloth tied about her breasts. Then she held out her hand.

"James, give me Bastet, your statue I mean..." She instructed.

The werecat was understandably confused but he went along with Mirri's request. The vampire was careful to hold onto the string rather than the statue itself, and lowered it against the left hand side of her chest.

There was sound of sizzling and the unpleasant smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

Against her better judgment Mirri pulled the cat statue away, only to adjust her grip on its string slightly and lower it once again to her flesh.

The sound and smell returned stronger than ever.

When the holy object's work was done Mirri handed it back to James, gazing down at the marks it had left upon her.

"I've heard that tattoos are all the rage among the right, or should I say wrong, elements of the lower class in Nova Vaasa. Sometimes, if a pair of them work well together, like one is great at picking pockets and other is amazing at opening locks, they'll get matching tattoos, two cats nuzzling one another. Both of them will get that symbol tattooed on the same part of their bodies.

Being a vampire I'd probably need to get marked with a ink that had been blessed and that would probably hurt even worse than something simple like this to get a proper tattoo. This was meant to be I think, after all, you had just the right holy symbol for it all this time..." Sure enough, as Mirri spoke it was now possible to see (so long as you looked at it with the right frame of mind) the symbol of two cats seated nose to nose nuzzling one another affectionately burnt upon her chest by the relic's rejection of Mirri's undead flesh.

As James took the statue back she beat a hasty verbal retreat towards what dignity she could still muster as she redonned her clothing.

"So when we get back to some place normal, you better ask Cal about what kind of inks and dyes a lycanthrope needs to use to get a permanent tattoo. Not that it is like we're you know, betrothed or anything, it is just, we work together well. So well that it is worth making a note of." She babbled.

Then for the first time since she'd begun James finally spoke up.

"My blood loves you Miriam Kantrar." It was silly, it was childish it, was stupid, it was absurd, it was down right nonsensical... it was perfect

Mirri threw her arms around the werecat's neck and her crimson tears began to leak from eyes.

"F*&k you James, I'm gonna need to drink more to make up for these..." The vampire whimpered in between her sobs.

"Well my femoral artery isn't going to start bleeding on its own Mirri." He responded with an amazing mix of innocence, comforting reassurance, and perversity.

Slowly her hands began to reach for James' belt.

"GET A COFFIN!" Cried out Cal Wright who had just arrived along with the rest of the group.

XXX XXX XXX

He looked at himself in the mirror. His outfit was exact and emasculate as befitted a man of his station.

He looked down at the note, though he had no need to read it a second time. It was clear enough, they had succeeded. They had not just driven away, but utterly slain the monster which had been plaguing his workers. Excavation could begin once again in the quarry, the Hiregaard family would remain financially secure without him needing to raise taxes.

They were on their way back here to the heroes welcome that they deserved. He'd already ordered his chefs to prepare a truly excellent feast and his servants to arrange all possible festivities.

Sadly, as certain as he was that the sun would rise tomorrow morning, he was equally sure that the gaiety would conclude with the death of James Firecat and most likely Mirri Catwarrior as well.

The white haired devil would not be denied on the mater, for who could deny what a stunning beauty the woman was? He had done battle with his twisted reflection long enough to know how that brute would react for a certainty.

He had tried all manner of things to keep his inner demon at bay, locking himself up here in the tallest tower of Castle Faerhaaven, binding himself with tight ropes or stout chains, the fiend never failed to make mockeries of his precautions and break free to wreak havoc none the less.

So today he was trying something different.

His eyes gazed at the bottle on the table before him, the potion maker he'd purchased it from said that anyone who drank would sleep like the dead for a full week straight.

The guards had been instructed in how to carry out the festival without him, and to tell others that he had come down with a minor infectious malady.

With luck, while he slumbered the snowy haired fiend would do likewise, or if the fiend did rise he would be at least slowed by the powerful sedative he was about to ingest.

He had no hope that such an approach would work twice if it even worked once, the bare faced monster was brilliant and had a way with alchemy that doubtlessly blossomed forth from the countless hidden distilleries producing all manner of illegal substances that he oversaw.

If it was required of him the man who ran nearly all of Nova Vassa's criminal enterprise on some level would doubtlessly find a way to contaminate an entire nation's supply of this potion when next he broke free.

None the less, he would do all within his power to see to it that those who had done so much for his family were not repaid for the service with suffering and brutality.

He removed the stopper and drank deeply.

He felt himself succumbing to sleep almost immediately but for as long as he could he watched the mirror wondering if he would see his hair change color in it.

No such transformation was taking place though, and as he drifted off into land of slumber he was still Tristen Hiregaard, duty from without brings honor from within!

XXX XXX XXX

"Hey, you the pale skinned pretty lady?" A gruff male voice whispered from the shadows.

"What if I am?" Mirri shot back.

One of the bog standard masculine "toughs" who could be found in just about any nation emerged from the shadows. Mirri was confident that if she couldn't turn his mind into jelly she could do the same to his spine instead.

Such was not to be today though...

"He wanted you to have this." The man "explained" pressing a small package into Mirri's hands before fading away back into the shadows.

"Must be a gift from your adoring public. Let's see what's inside!" James chirped happily.

Mirri gazed down at the small package, then decided she didn't have a lot to loose so she did exactly that.

The first thing she found was the note.

"To the sweet pussy I wanted but couldn't have. Come back soon... M." Along with the note was an elegant and carefully crafted paper make mask designed to give its wearer the features of a snarling plains cat.

It was made with such detail that it even captured the beast's ears, and given the omission of white tufts the feline being depicted was clearly female.

"Guess you've got a secret admirer." James reflected.

Mirri played with the mask for a few moments and then held it over her face.

"Well whoever sent it, I think it's looks purrrfect." The vampire trilled, quite pleased with her newest accessory.

XXX XXX XXX

Dear Dame Renier

I happy to report that I now realize there are wonderful things in the world you can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less true. It just means that you have to choose to believe in them! So really when they happen, it's best not to get overly concerned about that kind of thing and roll with the punches. Like if you get told that you were temporarily possessed by the spirit of some divine feline deity for the sake of smiting one particular undead priestess who had transgressed against that lesser deity's mother who was a more powerful goddess. Sorry, it has been kind of a weird month, even for me!

PS: I'm just glad that I have friends I can count on to put up with me no matter how weird I get. I guess in some ways I'm still having trouble growing into my paws just like you told me so many years ago!

PPS: I hope I didn't try to write you any messages while 'Maahes' (previously mentioned feline demigod I was possessed by) was influencing me. That would be embarrassing!

PPPS: Due to a shockingly favorable deal Tristen Hiregaard made with us about how we could take whatever relics we found just so long as we managed to stop the evil that was slaying his quarry workers, we managed to make off with several wagons worth of relics dating back to the days that Nova Vaasan's (heck I bet it was before the Nova Vassans as we call them today came to Nova Vaasa) worshiped Bastet. I know cat related stuff isn't very popular back home (not sure why, guess people begrudge the fact that you need a werecat to offer any real protection against a wererat) but I'm sure ancient cat stuff this ancient is so prestigious that you're bound to be able to think of some use for it! Just don't deface the stuff by say pulling the jewels out of the cat coffins, Bastet wouldn't like that.

Your Faithful Servant,

Longhair.

AN: Contrary to what my gut tells me would be most dramatically appropriate, a vampire's veins are not red against their pale skin, they are blue, or at least "science" "suggests" they should be blue. In real life, the reason that blood in our veins/ our veins themselves may look blue because it doesn't have as much oxygen as it has when it's exposed to open air (IE when we're bleeding). Therefore, in the body of a vampire which needs blood but not oxygen to function, the veins should look even more blue than they normally do on a human.

"Haldor og Gudrun" is the name of possibly the most popular story in Nova Vassa, and its longevity is proven by the fact that Mirri knows it, but it is still popular in modern times as well.

The important part of the story goes like this, Haldorg is a famous and important knight, who because of his great heroic deeds is put in charge of Nova Vassa's armies. That's a great honor, but made somewhat problematic by the fact that he's in love with Gudrun, who happens to be the barbarian queen of a tribe that is making war against Nova Vassa at the time.

The conclusion to the story is rather like a more bloody version of Romeo and Juliet, where Haldorg decides to launch an attack with his most trusted knights on the very core of Gundrun's army, because he figures that if he can kill himself and most of the Nova Vassan leadership then Gudrun is sure to be victorious and she'll at least be happy.

He gets a bunch of his own men killed and himself mortally wounded, but eventually is carried back to his lines before he dies. After being carried back he finds out that everyone is celebrating because while he was off doing his suicidal attack, Gudrun lead a suicidal attack of her own, and she's been killed which means her barbarian army is falling to pieces without her to lead it, leaving Haldorg to die in pain and misery.

Mirri's current take away from the story is that Haldorg (James) is never going to change, he's never going to turn his back on the things that he believes and stands for. That said, Gudrun (Mirri) isn't bound by the same sort of complex oaths of loyalty that a knight is. She's free to leave her old life behind and start a new one, a barbarian queen isn't bound by the same sort of complex rules as a knight is. She has the paradoxical freedom to choose not to be free, and instead be with the one she loves.

On a much less serious note," duty from without brings honor from within" is the motto of the Hiregaard family.

If you were curious, male Plains Cats have white tufts on their ears the same way male lions have manes. Never was a reason to point out this obvious fact in story, so there you go now you get what Mirri was talking about near the end.

Also, yes Mirri and Malken have the exact same quasi-feline verbal tic when they're pleased with how they look (Mirri even first showed it of back in Book One Chapter 8 after seeing a painting of herself that she liked) it is not even surprising if you're familiar with the symbolism of cats in Nova Vaasan culture.

Anyway, yes it does indeed seem that Checkov's gun has misfired. I'm ending this story without a showdown with Malken. It would extend the story unnecessary, and Malken is not a Darklord who can be easily disposed of. (If you kill him/Tristen it just means that Tristen's next oldest male child suddenly develops their own Malken, and so on and so forth down to his grandchildren and after that his illegitimate children, to the point that you need to use the Familicide spell from Order of the Stick if you wanted to be sure the matter was settled, and I'm pretty sure casting that spell is equivalent to about half a dozen Acts of Ultimate Darkness (go directly to darklordship do not pass go, do not even bother to roll those powers checks))

Malken and his interest in Mirri is a rich enough soil that I could write an entire book of Monster Party about it to be perfectly honest.

So instead, here's an at least semi-logical reason for why Malken doesn't try to do what he does best (oh look at the time it's Murder past Rape o'clock!) to James and Mirri when they get back to Tristen's castle.

Tiyet was the villain of this piece, I only included the Malken and Tristen pieces to help keep things realistic/reflect the world building that has gone into Ravenloft. Tristen would be attracted to Mirri (my 20 Cha brings all the boys to the yard), and Malken would be even more attracted to her, and want to unleash his traditional leonine romancing style (if a girl has a boyfriend, kill him and then she's all yours!) the first chance he got.

Also as a side note it's really stupid/silly that in some material Malken has been depicted as only Cha (Charisma) 3. I get that he's ugly, but there's a 14/15 (Tristen is Cha 18 and Malken is Cha 3 in the setting rules, but Tristen is 17 and Malken is 3 in this Adventure Book, and specific adventure write ups tend to trump the general rules) point Cha difference between Tristen and Malken and remember Cha is your force of personality not just how pretty you look.

If Malken is a successful crime boss, he should have a higher Cha. Otherwise he'd probably come across as Lugi Vercotti (paratroops Dino, he'd be a shame if somebody set fire to them) when really he should be a lot more like Doug Piranha (people would chew their own heads off rather than meet Doug). Further side note, this is corrected in the section on Nova Vassa In Ravenloft Gazetteer issue V (five) where both Malken and Tristen are Cha 18.

Now that I'm done with the Monty Python references, the other main reason for this is because it also makes it stupid easy to defeat Malken in combat through any attack that deals Cha damage, because if you go below 3 Cha, you no longer have enough force of personality to resist any orders you are given.

Anyway, taking a step away from the land of RPG crunch it is honestly sort of scary just how well being given a proper goal beyond being an evil criminal mastermind 'humanizes' Malken. Also it is interesting that yeah Malken going after Mirri (in my mind at least) feels completely different than Strahd going after Tatyana.

With Strahd he's seeking the yin to his yang, or possibly a woman who symbolizes the youth he now felt he might have misspent fighting in a war, and it's all very solemn and symbolic.

Malken on the other hand is looking for a double helping of yang (or of yin, the fact that yin is both dark and feminine makes this sort of hard to articulate perfectly using that metaphor), he looked at Mirri (through Tristen's eyes) and thought "Holy crap this bitch is almost as evil and depraved as I am, lets get together and have evil sexy times!" Which I will be the first to admit can quite easily degenerate into farce (hell just imaging Malken as the medieval equivalent of Doug and Dimsdale Piranha leaving people in his wake who would claim it was their own fault that he had to nail their heads to table is already gets us to farce already and then some).

On the other hand, farce isn't something completely unknown to Ravenloft ("Lets see how mindlessly brutal and militarily incompetent we can make Vlad Darkov with this edition!" "Good idea, I also thought up a bunch more funny puns for the tombstones in castle Ravenloft. What do you think of 'Mike Rotch' he's always up for a tug... of war.") though obviously I'm willing to take it to the next level since my end goal with these stories is to amuse rather than horrify.

That said, Malken is more or less dead on the money on how Mirri's mind works, though if he think she'd be the Harley Quinn to his Joker... he's got another thing coming to say the least.

Still, to his credit (most likely because he has the right frame of reference) he does at least correctly realize the real truth behind Mirri's name. Part of me wants to see the entire thing turns into a henti dark comedy where Malken rapes and murders his way across Nova Vaasa only constantly burst in on James and Mirri who already busy doing it like he's some kind of bizarre fusion of Cosmo Kramer and Pyramid Head (Rape Rape Rape!).

Then he tries to sick Plains Cats on James but Mirri uses her vampire animal control abilities which trump Malken's because all of Malken's powers are all always "only half on" so to speak (for example he can't seal the domain, remember in the eyes of the mists/Dark Powers, Malken is cursed with Sir Tristen at this point not the other way around) and he must exeunt stage left perused by plains cats.

That or the inevitable moment he when he discovers that Mirri is a vampire (I'd say that Malken possesses the strength of a madman as was once said about Renfield, but on the other hand, whose stronger Renfield or Dracula?) which seems pretty likely to give him exactly what he wants and make him really wish he hadn't got it just like a proper Darklord curse should... ("Oh Mirri will you respect me in the morning?" "I don't respect you now." "Well fuck you very much." "Don't mind if I do...")

It's the coyote and the roadrunner situation, just about anyone can be cute and endearing when they fail frequently enough (Strahd fails every twenty to forty years, so he doesn't qualify Malken would be failing to get Mirri multiple times in the same week so he would) and in a humiliatingly enough fashion.

Anyway stay tuned for the entire novel commentary and then the choice of what comes next.


	15. Chapter 15

Monster Party Book 4 Story commentary...

Well here we are again.

Like I promised this story just did not come together as quickly as book three, no book I write is going to come together as quickly as book three. Also those of you who are not reading this on can have a nice long laugh at this point.

Anyway this "Book" and "The Awakening" the Ravenloft adventure book it was written about.

Just to get something off my chest, I'm still not totally happy with the "song line" that I went with. Honestly I probably should have stuck with one of my earlier plans of using a line from Aristocats that I still ended up using for a chapter title, but on the other hand I still went with lines from Halestorm's "Love Bites" because I consider it Mirri's "theme song" in regards to how she personally feels about her relationship with James, in character at least. From an out of character position I'd still favor Bleeding Love, but yeah, "Love Bites" and Mirri fit together pretty well. Doubly so given the female to female conflict that is so central to the last quarter of this story between Mirri and Tiyet.

Now, this series all started with me having some very clear ideas about what I wanted the characters to be like, and then finding appropriate home domains to further reflect/explain/enhance their personalities.

Cal was the easiest to place, if you want to have a alchemist/ a guy whose things is entirely non magical weaponry, having him come from Lamordia is pretty obvious, likewise easy to place were Devi, Alexander and Florence though I won't say why.

James was a bit trickier but Richemulot being the most "up and coming" domain, the domain where the common person is likely to feel patriotic and not just loyalty to their individual family, not to mention it having a fairly liberal (for Ravenloft) outlook towards various kinds of demi-humans helped. Granted, most likely in your Ravenloft setting even with Jacqueline Renier's personal recurrences people might not be willing to trust even a werehousecat, but on the other hand that sort of comes down to the DC versus Marvel debate.

That analogy is much more reasonable than you might expect, just give me a moment to explain.. If some random person with incredible powers shows up and starts cleaning up your town, kicking the butt of all the monsters/villains who have always plagued your family, do you look to them with awe and reverence (DC) or do you worry about what is likely to happen if they ever turned that power on you and your family (Marvel)?

Those are only loose themes and not really related to this adventure so lets move on, you didn't come here just to here me ramble after all did you?

On the off chance you did, Poppity pop pop pop!

Mirri was actually the hardest member of the group to place. I considered Dementlieu with its stark divisions between upper and lower class and high culture overlaying base oppression, but disliked that idea because I wanted to have Mirri be smug and superior, but not exactly "Snooty" if that makes any sense.

I considered Kartakass with a lovely singing voice but tossed that aside as Kartakass doesn't really have noble families and I wanted Mirri to be a countess (or at least claim to have been one/been in line to be one) because having a vampire claim to be a count/countess is one of those things that is just so very cliche it warps right around into being awesome again...

In the end, Nova Vassa won because its ever present aura of corruption played well into Mirri's base "I've got mine, screw you" outlook on life.

Once I made this decision I was pleasantly surprised by the discovery that cats play a large part in the mythology/iconography of Nova Vassa (seriously folks, she's called "Mirri Catwarrior" for the Magic the Gathering card/character I chose that name well before I started thinking about Ravenloft domains) where they serve as a symbol of freedom and power at the expense of honor/others, which is a concept near and dear to Mirri's unbeating heart.

So I knew I wanted Mirri to come from Nova Vassa around the time I started writing the first book. Likewise I knew that I wanted to have James worship Bastet from the same time period so my initial reaction on reading "The Awakening" was to toss it in the same pile as "Adam's Wrath" (too much based around the gimmick of seeing the PCs being killed and turned into flesh golems) or "The Created" (Florence breaks this adventure with her control over wood, Mirri breaks it with her completely immunity to being paralyzed), of Ravenloft adventures I would never write a full story around.

Then I read it again a little more carefully and realized that there was no way I couldn't write a full story around this adventure!

Let me bring up a Kurt Vonnegut saying that I used back in the first book "Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of. "

I'm probably going to quote that saying fairly frequently in these commentaries, but I think it fits the theme of the universe perfectly. The difference between a hero and a villain in Ravenloft is that when a hero goes through great suffering, they take it on the chin, and find a way to come back stronger (emotionally speaking) while villains tend to fall into various psychologically unhealthy behaviors/fixations that start to (especially in the case of darklords) take over their lives.

Some blades are tempered and made stronger in the flames, some are melted into worthless slag.

James suffered a great deal in that first book from his hunger for fresh flesh, Cal had to deal with trying to solve an impossible crime along with a villain who was more or less outwitting him at every turn, and Mirri, Mirri gets taken to the place she least wants to be, has to preform a task for a despot she hates, she has her relationship with James frayed by his possession by Maahes, and then near the end she looses him completely, in short, if you couldn't tell, she suffers.

The only real exception to this rule is that Alex didn't suffer much in the second book . Now that I type those words "out loud", if I'd been a smarter more daring writer I'd have done THE ENTIRE SECOND BOOK from Mikhail Zolnik's perspective, since he suffers pretty heavily. Granted, the downside to that approach is that by portraying the PCs only through an NPC's eyes I'd risk making them look even more like overpowered Mary Sue's /Gary Stus than the first book did.

So yes, the foundation of this book was going to be Mirri's relationship with Nova Vassa, her relationship with James, and James' relation with Bastet.

If you want the exact religious breakdown of the group (and I haven't given it yet) here it is...

Mirri: Casually believes in Kali because divine magic works so gods must exist, so better to have one in your corner/on your side just in case.

Cal: Great clockmaker version of non-worship, god(s) probably created the world, sprinkled some magic behind that people could use in their name(s), then left.

Devi: Along roughly the same lines as Cal.

Florence: Believes in Gaia/the Green, a metaphysical concept of all existence/plant life being connected.

Alexander: As he said in the story, Alexander Diamondclaw will only worship a deity who manifests itself as a physical being, then punches a darklord in the face.

James: Firm belief in Bastet.

So yes, while Florence is the only member of the group doing "divine magic" (in the sense that it's not "arcane magic") James has the strongest "belief" (in the sense that what Florence is doing isn't really "believing" because she gets magic out of the deal so she has some proof).

So with all that said, maybe I can finally get started on a chapter by chapter break down?

To start with, I was originally planning on having the story start with some sort of short but dramatic dream sequence that would involve the first utterance of "serpents fear me, cats revere me..." and the character's imagining being crushed by a giant cat's paw right before they wake up, but I didn't want to write more or less the same scene five or six times over, I didn't want to the group to be having a communal dream, and it would have felt silly/lost some of the punch if one character basically said "well I had a weird dream where X, Y, and Z happened" and the others just agreed.

So instead, I just started with our humble shop owner.

In the Adventure Book he actually owns a coffin shop, and for some reason that I can't lay a finger on (probably my misreading, it has happened before) I ended up deciding that he owned an antique store instead, and once I'd made the decision I decided I liked it better than the original for gut reasons that I can't really clarify sadly.

I do like the sheer surreal nature of how this adventure can begin with the characters waking up inside coffins and the guy who bought said coffins having a sort of "ehh what you gonna do?" shoulder shrug reaction to it. Ravenloft is weird, strange thing happen.

Now what he finds out about Mirri's coffin may sit a little strangely with those of you who have a deep interest in the history of Nova Vassa, or at least how it relates to Ravenloft.

For starters, Nova Vassa is only supposed to have been in Ravenloft as long as Malken has existed, which is less than a hundred years. There's no simply no way that Mirri should have been able to have spent the last three to four hundred years exploring the Core if Nova Vassa was not a part of it until relatively recently.

My explanation for this (though I never mention it in story since it wouldn't make sense to mention it in story) is that Nova Vassa with its long history of double dealing and corruption was brought to Ravenloft much sooner than it was in the normal Ravenloft continuity and the Darklord has had a tendency to jump around to whoever the biggest son of a bitch in the domain was, giving them only minimal powers so that an up and coming son of a bitch wouldn't have too much trouble killing them and claiming darklordship for themselves.

That's not a perfect fix, but it is good enough/is at least internally consistent.

The other issue is that the background is always quite clear about how there are only five families of nobles of Nova Vassa, so where exactly do the "Kantrar" family that Mirri was a member of fit in?

I'll present two possible explanations and you can pick whichever you like better...

1: They were an offshoot of one of the existing five families, since each of the five major families has minor offshoots here and there to avoid inbreeding reaching "I'm my own grandfather" levels.

The other is that they used to be a noble family of the Tygaami people (hence why their motto involves an animal comparison which none of the Vassi family's mottoes do) and as a way to smooth out the integration of the Old Vassan and Tygaami people, the Tygaami nobles kept some of their power, though eventually they all ended up being absorbed/bred into one of the five Nova Vassan noble families, and thus ceased to be recognized/referred to as their own separate families/houses.

Once again, not perfect, but needs must when the devil drives, or to put it more bluntly, when I start out with a concept I want to play around with, don't be surprised if I tug, twist, and play with the edges of the setting's established facts to make it more or less fit.

With those issues (which I doubt very many of you cared about, but hey these commentaries exist so I can talk as much as I want) we move onto the the second chapter where having reviewed what the characters look like and what domain they'll be spending this week in, we can finally start seeing how the characters react to the domain.

Mirri dislikes Nova Vassa. She dislikes it for the very simple reason that Mirri dislikes evil, or to put it more accurately, Mirri dislikes evil in other people.

As I believe I've mentioned before, Mirri would much prefer a world in which she is the only intelligent form of "life" that exists with an evil alignment. Chiefly because if everyone else in the world is good and only encountered other good people, it makes things so much easier for her to use/abuse their trust to her advantage.

She dislikes Nova Vassa because everyone with any intelligence at all is going to already be on guard for the double cross She also dislikes it because it is a solid link to her past, and like many vampires (or other monsters/certain demi-humans) she figures that people mainly want to poke into her past to use it as a weapon against her.

The encounter with the poor female shop keeper, the tax collector, and his lycanthropic companion is lifted directly from the adventure book as one of many possible events you can run into in the market, and an obvious way to get the players moving in Prince Othmar's direction. Typical PC parties may be doing so under less friendly circumstances (IE having actually been arrested) but that's easier said than done with Alexander and friends.

It's also worth pointing out that this particular scene is yet more proof for my argument that I'm not really sure why (natural) werewolves are considered CE by default. Wolves are pack creatures, it's one of their most defining features right up there with howling at the moon, werewolves should be LE the same way that wererats are.

Granted, the most famous Wererat in Ravenloft (Jacqueline Renier) is CE and her sister Louise is NE so of course you do get deviation from the norm, but still, really I don't get why werewolves are marked as CE when the behavior of (natural) werewolves tends towards organizing groups, see Gregor Zolnik in Book 2 and his boyarsky or Alfred Timothy and the fact that he even started up a religion! That or "lawful" just doesn't mean what I think it means/is an incredibly vaguely defined term in regards to D&D, what else is new?

We are thus taken to chapter three.

Mirri gives us the back story of Nova Vassa, or at least the most commonly accepted back story of Nova Vassa as relayed by Gazetteer V (5).

Out of character it is amusing that Mirri derides the Iron Faith for trying to depict Zaanji as the first to believe in the Lawgiver as "history is written by the winners", since her entire glowing depiction of Zaanji is based on the fact that he "won" pretty thoroughly while he was alive.

Mirri of course holds Zaanji as a model to live up to, crush your enemies, conquer everything you can find, live life in the lap of luxury, and in her case never die in bed since vampires don't age. To Mirri the story of Zaanji is proof that "happy endings" are not just for heroes in stories, sometimes if you're a big enough bastard no one will dare try to give you anything approaching proper comeuppance.

What goes unsaid in her version of the story is that the Nova Vassans probably were pretty horrible at ruling the places they conquered, not in the repressive sense (though they probably were that also) but in the sense that they totally failed at trying to build a cohesive empire out of all the territory they laid claim to and only kept control of those areas that were within reasonable march/ride. Basically, the same sort of thing that happened when Genghis Khan (also another name for Zaanji is "Juungi", and given that in Warhammer 40k the leader of the White Scars Space Marine chapter that is very Mongolian in nature is Jaghatai Khan I can't help but think if you turn your head and squint the names are sort of similar...) died, though I'll note that the Old Vassans come across as much less like Mongolians and much more like Norse Vikings from what little information there is on them, it's the Tygaami who are are more Mongolian ironically.

Anyway, Mirri is upset about Prince Othmar appropriating the ancient relics of Zaanji because while he may be a huge bastard, Othmar hasn't done anything as a ruler other than oppressing the people of Nova Vassa, and oppressing your own population is a military task so easy that even Vlad Drakov can pull it off! He's never even conquered Tepest (Nova Vassa's smallest most backwards neighbor) let alone come close to the sorts of feats that Zaanji did!

Luckily, the fact that they are foreign adventurers (and Mirri has been away long enough/vampirism changed her appearance enough that she'd probably be considered foreign also at first glance) they get a lot more leeway for being eccentric than any of Othmar's other servants, as long as they still get the job done of course.

By the way, if you were familiar with the Adventure Book as written, this chapter should have been your first clue that the train had gone off the rails, or at least switched to parallel track.

As written, Othmar should have looked like he was suffering a terrible hangover and barely be awake. The reason for this is because the item that got called the Staff of Bastet in this story in the Adventure Book was the Staff of Set.

You may be a little surprised by that, so let me explain.

The staff was supposed to have been used by followers/minions of Kematef (that guy who murdered "Tiyet" by sharpening his teeth into fangs, hollowing them out, filling them with poison and biting her, (because as Cobra Commander will attest, serpent themed villainy isn't the kind of thing you just dip a toe into, when you commit, you commit fully!) in the neck.) who used it to seal Tiyet inside the gigantic cat shaped tomb she was buried in as vengeance for her killing so many of them. The Staff is supposed to pick someone of appropriately Set worshiping alignment (neutral evil, though "any evil" will do in a pinch, or just someone who was forced to make (or better yet failed) a dark powers check recently) and make them a servant of the staff.

The servant is plagued by strange nightmares involving laying on a bed made of snakes, and they drift through life in a daze barely awake. Othmar being Neutral Evil was chosen as a servant, even though the staff never actually reached him, and the staff has been calling out to him to come and claim it, which is what he hires the PCs to do, though once they get near the staff it selects one of them since they're physically more powerful (higher CR) than Othmar.

You folks got all that?

If not, take a wander around googling "The awakening Ravenloft PDF" and see if you can't find a copy of the Adventure Book to read.

Actually, since I'm already pretty diverted let me get this out of the way also.

Tiyet is not supposed to be named Tiyet. Tiyet is supposed to be named Sachmet.

If you've been paying attention at all to these author notes (or more unlikely are familiar with Egyptian mythology) you should know that Bastet had an "older" (okay I like to imagine she was older) grumpier, meaner sister named Sekhmet.

Sekhmet, Sachmet.

If you believe that the above is pure random chance then I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, an opera house to sell you in Sydney, and a great big pristine (you might even say white) house to sell you in Washington DC.

For a brief break down once again...

Bastet: Depicted as a woman with the head of a housecat, Chaotic Good, protector, only fought for the purpose of defeating evil/protecting good, probably one of the nicest deities around.

Sekhmet: Depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness. Chaotic Neutral. Fought whenever she felt like it. Has a name which roughly translates to "She who maims." Not openly malicious, but not nice by anyone's imagination.

So I can sort of see the joke that was being gone for by name an evil worshiper of Bastet after her eviler (if not actually evil) sister, since Sachmet being chaotic evil could actually worship Sekhmet (and sally could sell seashells by the sea shore) but it only makes sense if you assume that Bastet but not Sekhmet exists in whatever reality Sachmet originally came from (she's from the prime material plane but was taken to Ravenloft after she died, though she could just as easily be from super far back in Nova Vassa's history) and that's a really odd arrangement of deities, since I don't think it was common practice in Egypt to name children after existing deities or if you did they'd probably want to change their names if they decided to worship another deity.

Also, that world where Bastet exists but not Sekhmet, that's not Ravenloft, that's not even close to being Ravenloft.

According to Gazetteer V again, in Nova Vassa they used to worship two cat goddesses named Sehkmaa and Bubahkaa...

Sehkmaa, Sekhmet. Bubahkaa, Bastet.

Sehkmaa is in point of fact the MORE IMPORTANT of the two, or at least in recent Nova Vassan history. The reason for that I've already been over once (possibly more than once) but let me do it again. When Malken was just getting started he formed a religious group known as the Claws of Sehkmaa to serve as a front for all his dirty deeds, such as creating an orphanage named the Paw of the Cat to recruit youngsters into a life of crime. (Paw of the Cat... Catspaw... I'm honestly still surprised he got away with that one).

So Sehkmaa exists in Ravenloft... or at least "exists" as much as any god "exists" in Ravenloft... Sehkmaa worship was a thing that happened is my point.

Also given what I can understand about how ancient Egyptian is spoken versus how it was written (which is very little but hey I can google), the "T" in Sekhmet was there for flavor and not to be pronounced, that's why there are two "Ts" in Bastet, it's a symbol that you're actually supposed to pronounce the T sound.

So Sekhmet would be closer phonetically when said aloud to "Sehkme" so now if you can't so once again for those playing along at home...

"Sehkme", Sehkmaa, Sachmet, and if we assume the same naming convention holds true that's really "Sachme" see my point?

Ravenloft already has a version of Sekhmet to stand in opposition to Bastet, and Sachmet is not needed to fill that role, especially as she has absolutely nothing to do with Malken and his criminal ventures, she could be named literally ANYTHING ELSE and it would be a net improvement for the adventure.

So that's why I named her Tiyet, and so long as I never write a story that takes place in Sebua no one need be confused, and believe me folks, I'm real good at not writing things, nobody can leave a page blank the way I can!

I'm also going to keep calling her Tiyet through this author commentary just to keep people from getting confused, assuming that isn't already a lost cause.

Moving on!

The group gets their marching orders and heads off to the forest.

Before they can get there though they have their first run in Tiyet in her second life. In this life she's basically a zombie, cats are drawn instinctively to pay attention to her, but that is it, they don't serve her in any way and she can't even properly pronounce her catchphrase.

Alex kills her with such ease that he probably got colder (IE the opposite of breaking a sweat) from the experience.

Then we have the forest.

Between Florence's magic and knowledge of botany and James' skills with traditional traps the group manages to actually sneak up on Chezna and friends.

Also, I will cop to the fact that one of the members of Chezna's band is supposed to be a werewolf. It's like barely even mentioned in the text (the character isn't named) so I decided that it simply wasn't pertinent enough to the situation to give Alex another "rub my jaw" moment.

The bandit werewolf might have been interesting, but since he has no character/back story there wasn't enough for me to use as a solid foundation unlike what I did with Wolfgang back in Book 3.

So after capturing the bandits we meet up with Othmar who in this version not having been selected by the staff is only interested in the money and so gets it and goes off leaving our heroes a little bit richer and some of them very bemused.

Speaking of which, if you didn't guess by the epilogue of this story, Mirri is still certain that Othmar is Nova Vassa's darklord. Probably because he's done a great more to offend her with the banality of his rulership than any actual harm /wrong done to her.

Which brings us to chapter five where James gets possessed/inhabited by Maahes, or at the very least sincerely believes that he's being possessed/inhabited by Maahes, this being Ravenloft where gods aren't supposed to show up directly, he might just be dealing with some sort of powerful cat spirit that Bastet created and bound to the staff, making the spirit her "son" and thus still fit the theme of thinking of itself as Maahes son of Bastet, even if he isn't an actual god.

So like I said above, I pretty much shifted the plot to a parallel line, in that I kept the idea of a member of the PC's party being possessed by a being that is hostile to Tiyet, the difference is that in the Adventure Book as written Kematef hates Tiyet because he is loyal to Set and Set and Bastet hate each other because Set is a evil, so Kematef wants to kill servants of Bastet, even when those servants are technically no longer fit to serve Bastet from an out of universe perspective.

Maahes on the other paw hates Tiyet because once he's filled in on the situation properly, he believes what Tiyet is preaching/doing is heresy, and if there's one thing Commissar Maahes won't stand for, it is heresy.

So yeah, while Kematef exists to overwrite/replace the PCs original personality, Maahes and James either intentionally or unintentionally came to a more "share and share alike" approach to things where their personalities/minds sort of meld together to create a gestalt personality.

I wanted to do this for two main interesting...

1: There would have been no "bite" to the scene where "James" jumps into Tiyet's arms if it had already been established that Maahes can overrule/rewrite James' personality however he pleases, instead, there seemed to be enough James in him to still be loyal to Richemulot/Alexander/the group/still enough of him left that he wanted to continue his romance with Mirri and is only awkwardly uncertain why she thinks he's somebody other than who he normally is.

2; It actually is on point about the fact that James is not from Nova Vassa, James is something other than what is "normal" (that being evil and corruption) in Nova Vassa. Malken is the darklord of Nova Vassa, Malken completely takes over the body of Tristen Hiregaard, and mentally Kematef does the same thing to the PC who the Staff of Set selects, though without any accompanying physical changes like Malken causes Tristen to suffer. The fact that James and Maahes managed to accomplish the feat of two spirits dwelling within one body, and get along with each other, in Nova Vassa, is actually a pretty powerful symbol of defiance to the dark status quo.

Or at least that's what I'm going to say it is.

Which brings us to chapter six.

Honestly, there's unlikely to be any "book" I write where the darklord has less of an effect on the story than Malken does on this one. Granted, he tends to prefer to operate from the shadows/keep himself hidden when there isn't something he wants to accomplish anyway.

In this story, Tiyet with her ability to control cats is getting in the way of Malken's ability to control cats, so his aims align perfectly with the group's, or at least they do until Tiyet is dead/destroyed. After that, well there's the little issue of him wanting to murder James and do unspeakable things to Mirri, but Tristen manages to outfox him on that front and since Malken can't close the domain borders to keep people in, so he'll have to wait for another day to possibly sort things out.

That said, even though Malken himself only shows up for one short segment, I still wanted to give him his due in this chapter and show how his influence hangs heavy over Nova Vassa/Tristen.

As Malken himself reflects a little later on, he and Mirri have a lot in common, and it sort of shows right from the start of this chapter, since if you couldn't tell, Malken's minions were working on a plan that would involve smuggling a pure breed Nova Vassa stallion across the border, which is the exact same scheme that Mirri was so fixated on (momentarily at least) back in chapter two.

Granted Malken likes cold hard cash more than Mirri does (Mirri likes fame/respect/awe/reverence more, which is why for her the biggest payoff was being known as the one who pulled it off) so he's been sticking with the plan for a lot longer than Mirri did.

Then we get to meet Tristen face to face, and we start seeing how he and Malken mirror each other.

(In my version of the domain at least) Malken is known throughout Nova Vassa as "The Boss" by his supporters and likewise Tristen is known as "The Captain" to those who follow him.

That said, Tristen is only Lawful Neutral rather than Lawful Good, and he is in point of fact very devout in his belief in the Lawgiver, it is just that he takes a softer approach to the faith than is traditional, most likely because the fact that he's doomed to the Hell of Slaves means he isn't in much position to judge anyone.

Tellingly however Tristen actually does let loose with one noticeable bald faced lie to the group, though they had no way of knowing it/calling him on it. If you know your Enemy Within, you might have spotted it, and it's a good signal of how Tristen isn't perfect, even if he is among the "best" Nova Vassa has.

Tristen tells the group that Sigfrid was killed by Malken.

In point of fact, Sigfrid ended up finding the journal that Tristen had been keeping in which he discussed his attempts to deal with Malken, which also included some messages that Malken wrote back to him.

Sigfrid believed that this was a more conventional sort of insanity rather than possession by... whatever exactly Malken is (there's no perfect word for him honestly) and so felt that it was his duty to lock up Tristen and eventually have him confined to a sanitarium/asylum.

Tristen in turn felt (one could argue not incorrectly) he needed to stay free to oppose Malken as best he could... so using his life of friendship/being Sigfrid's master, got Sigfrid to drop his guard, and then whacked him over the head with his (Tristen's) cane to knock him out and figure out what to do in the long term later. Except the blow ended up fracturing Sigfrid's skull and killing him, so that particular twisty problem was "solved" for a given definition of the term.

Tristen is not above whitewashing some of his own more questionable actions (like breaking into the tomb where Nova Vassa's rulers are buried so he can use their bodies as components for a spell he hoped would destroy Malken), chooses to relay this to the group as Malken killing Sigfrid, because Malken was the root cause of the pair's falling out, even if it was beyond a shadow of a doubt Tristen's arm that struck the blow without any direct influence from Malken at the time.

Also, it'd probably be contraindicated to talk to relatively random people about that time you accidentally killed one of your servants because he thought you were crazy, you can't really unring that bell.

Also, if you're aware of what's really going on and look carefully at how Tristen gently dissuades Alex and company from helping him try to deal with Malken, there's another sign of how Tristen isn't exactly pure as newly fallen snow.

He has a bit of the Batman/Darkwing Duck style egotism about him, where he insist that it needs to be him who takes down Malken, and anyone who gets involved in the process needs to be someone directly loyal to him and not just on his payroll.

Probably because Tristen is smart enough to realize that if Alex got involved, and then found out that Malken and Tristen were the same person... just because we the readers know that Malken will jump bodies if he's killed, it doesn't mean that Tristen knows that/would be able to convince Alexander not to try the "simple solution" if he was aware that Malken was joy riding around in Tristen's body.

Not that Tristen's pleas of poverty are entirely without merit, his family is the poorest of the five due to the fact that he taxes his serfs the least, though he still collects every copper they owe him, or owe Othmar for his much higher "princely" taxes.

At which point we see that whatever else he may be, being CHA (Charisma) 18 Tristen knows how to wheel and deal, since the group goes away from it with no idea at all that Tristen might have some smaller dark secrets, and one much larger particular dark secret.

One of the classic tools of comedy is character Y declaring X right before we cut to some scene that is the exact opposite of X. This tends to work better in a visual format since the juxtaposition becomes obvious much more quickly and succinctly, but it can work in written formats as well.

Mirri is utterly sure that Tristen is "all horse and no cat" and that Othmar is the darklord of Nova Vassa, cut to Malken the real darklord!

Which brings us to chapter seven I guess.

The group obviously does not get along well with the native Nova Vassan guards/knights/soldiers, but you can't really be surprised by that. On the other hand, Nova Vassa isn't G'Henna, so since they have that letter from Tristen the locals will at least be polite.

We see a bit more of the difficulties that Mirri and James are having, then Mirri decides that she needs to figure out what sort of foolishness James is up to now.

I don't directly go in for biblical allusions all that often, but the way that James is just sort of casually laying there while the plains cats lick him with their tongues rather than ripping him apart with their fangs/claws was intended to be read as very Daniel and the Lions Den, where a character is clearly only being saved from a horrific mauling/death at the hands of large felines because of divine intervention.

Granted, direct actual divine intervention doesn't really happen/isn't supposed to happen in Ravenloft but if you didn't realize it, the Staff of Bastet has a charm felines ability built into it.

I'm not sure if I should feel proud or ashamed of myself for never being all that clear about just what the Staff of Bastet was capable of.

I mean, in story terms James/Maahes certainly wouldn't stand around poking it/prodding it, testing it just to see what sort of magical powers it provides, that's not how either of them relate to Bastet.

So by simply never clarifying exactly what it can and can't do that helps build up some suspense/makes the item seem truly mystical. Also, I feel I can afford to get away with it, because while it may provide a quite literal Deus Ex Machina (at least if you consider the something as simple as a "staff" a machine) when he uses it to end destroy Tiyet's 9th life, I don't think it did so in a way that robbed the story of all dramatic tension, since before that happened we got to see Mirri have the knock down, drag out, toss each other to the floor, drag each other through the mud fight with Tiyet during her 8th life.

I am utterly certain that the Staff of Bastet is most certainly a concentrated holy relic of Bastet, which is why Mirri instinctively doesn't like it and especially doesn't want it in her coffin, since much like James' icon of Bastet, just touching it can be painful to her.

In fact, let me take a step back and do something I should have done before in this commentary/possibly should have done in the adventure book itself but didn't find a convenient appropriate way to do so.

Okay so back when Tiyet was still alive and starting to become a few whiskers sort of a cat, Bastet was not happy with what she was seeing as Tiyet drifted from CG to NG and then was starting to make distinct progress towards CE territory.

Thus, Bastet ended up contacting some of her other priestesses who didn't follow Tiyet's branch of the teachings (remember Bastet worship is prone to schism/normally good hearted infighting) and had them craft an item known as the Staff of Bastet.

Back when she (Tiyet) used to be good Bastet had unconditionally agreed to give Tiyet 9 lives, and so she couldn't go back on her deal. What she could do however was take actions to prevent her from being able to do any damage with those nine lives.

The Staff of Bastet was designed so that when placed near the opening of the great cat shaped crypt Tiyet was to be buried in, it would send her into a deep dreamless sleep/hold her body in stasis similar to the jars of preservation, never to harm anyone else.

The Staff was put in its place and it worked... (though Tiyet and the crypt either were or were not taken to Ravenloft, pick and choose your background as you see fit...) up until the point when shortly before this Adventure Book begins, some workers who were digging at the Koshka Bluffs found it, and removed it, thus nullifying the stasis/sleeping spell and allowing Tiyet to wake up for the first time.

With me so far?

The next part is that because of how long it had passed the system for reuniting Tiyet's undead body with her Ba had gone on the fritz, and so she wasn't really herself at first, in fact she wasn't really anyone, she was just a mindless zombie with a desire to retrieve things related to her crypt that others had stolen.

Granted, given that as a zombie she has next to no "Ba" it does raise the question of why a bird with a human head flies away the first time she dies... which is a problematic offshoot of the fact that the people who wrote this adventure couldn't bother to do as much research as I did (okay granted this was made in 1994 so google/wikipedia/the internet might not have really been a thing then, but I'm sure if you looked at your encyclopedia Britannica the answer should be in there...) on correctly reflecting the Egyptian view of the soul.

The Ba is depicted as a bird with a human head, and is your memories/your personality, your Ka is the force that animates your body, allows it to move. A mindless zombie has a Ka but no Ba, a machine that you are familiar enough with to know that it always misbehaves in a certain way even after supposedly being fixed, could be said to have a Ba but obviously no Ka.

Where were we again?

Oh yeah, we were talking about this chapter, and how Tiyet by this point has had enough awakenings to be fully sentient and capable of proper thinking and planning, though she had not yet gained any of her magical abilities beyond the innate ability as a priestess of Bastet to sway the minds of cats.

Not that this makes her any more pleasant company as the group discovers, since she is upset that two of them (Cal and Alex) killed her during her past lives.

I am still proud of Devi defeating Tiyet by using the shield that the group got from Tristen, since like my original authors notes pointed out, although it has a neat ability, the shield itself has no real important place in the lore of the adventure, and no major part to play in its resolution unless the group can figure out how to make it work and needs a few extra 1-ups though this being Ravenloft that's certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility.

So that takes us to chapter eight where the group finds the temple and starts working their way through it.

In the Adventure Book as written there's a dead tomb robber here who has a pair of enchanted lenses that should let the group read the weird witting on the walls, but Cal being who he is already has that particular enchantment on his glasses and James with Maahes riding around in his brain can read them "naturally".

For the most part this entire dungeon is one long series of cat themed traps/riddles.

I say "for the most part" because I'll be highlighting some exceptions.

The fake door does indeed trigger a "holy word" spell, and I decided to go for a cheap gag with it, because I'm not sure if Cal had suffered enough for our amusement yet this book.

In theory the undead plains cats should attack the group after that particular trap is sprung, but Alex was very through and so dealt with them beforehand which is why that did not happen.

The Adventure Book simply requires that you put fresh meat in the jaws of the cat statue, it doesn't have to have been from a recently slain rat/rodent, but doing something like that is the way that James' mind works.

In theory after that as you make your way along you have some encounters with living plains cats/you find what remains of Tristen's court mage who was supposed to be in the area, but with the retcons that followed (I have mentioned it is the national sport of Nova Vassa right?) it seemed that a court priest/priestess would be more likely and then maybe that would be something more like a professional confessor? I'm not quite sure, I do know that based on how they view arcane magic, they shouldn't have court mages, and by giving Tristen some magical talent himself there was no need for her, so we skipped over what a pretty boring animal attack and a cursed ring that makes you think you can command animals but you really can't, so you get mauled to death by them.

The next major thing to encounter is the teleport trap where Tiyet splits up the group and starts toying around with them. Granted this is her 5th awakening, so she has only gained back a little of her magical abilities and actually according to the Adventure Book still takes full damage from non-magical weapons at this point, which is why the lone adventurers have a chance of holding their own/why she doesn't try to go in for the kill.

I don't get why someone would build the sort of trap/room that Devi winds up in, I'm just playing it as described in the Adventure Book, (small featureless room, ceiling descends till you have to lay on your back, crypt cats start caressing you with whatever remains of their tongues, till they get bored and leave revealing the way out, overall not pleasant but also not fatal) make of it what you will. It's also at this point that James finally finds out that this entire crypt is dedicated not to some random cat goddess, but to Bastet.

In theory he should have found out sooner, since like the very first inscription you run into mentions Bast/Bastet's name, but much like how in the third book I pushed back the reveal that doppelgangers were involved in the case until it would be most dramatic, I did the same thing here. Granted I don't fault them as much for revealing that Tiyet worships Bastet early on in the Adventure Book the way that I do fault them for giving away the shapeshifter game too early in Hour of the Knife, because in The Awakening the fact that Tiyet worships Bastet is just a interesting curiosity and none of the PCs may have ever heard of Bastet, as opposed to how in this story it is a shocking revelation.

This brings us to chapter nine and Maahes swearing that he'll deal with this situation one way or another.

Before anything else cat related happens in the Adventure Book the group has to deal with a bunch of tiny monsters called Jermaine (don't look at me, I've never heard of them either and I've read all the Ravenloft monster manuals) who are evidently tiny humans who bedevil the players for a bit, but I vetoed them completely from the story because they are not "on point", they do not have anything to do with Tiyet, do not have anything to do with this crypt in particular, and do not have anything to do with Bastet. So yeah, in my view they're just four pages (three describing the encounters and one of a map) worth of padding not worthy of drawing any real focus.

Moving on the next major encounter that actually does flow with the theme we're working on is the room with the eyeless cat statues. The cat statues with eyes will be "armed" if you fail to pick the lock properly or force the door (James succeeded so they weren't) and will once armed activate when a player touches something in the room, and start shooting out weird magical ray that if they hit cause one of their stone eyes to magically switch places with the living eye of whoever they strike. Ravenloft is weird sometimes.

To find the correct cats eye stones that will open the way forward, you have to go through the drowning trap, there's just no other way to do it.

In theory this particular trap has nothing at all to do with cats either, but I keep it in, because if you think about it for a bit, it informs the character of Tiyet.

The reason there are so many bones/skeletons in this room (they're actually mummies rather than skeletons, but the group calls 'em like they sees 'em, and if you are seeming mindless pile of bones devoid of clothing they'll call you a skeleton) are those of the workers who helped create this Crypt, and who Tiyet had murdered by their own devices to make sure they couldn't reveal the secrets of the crypt to anyone.

The book suggests that if there are any of them sill alive when the trap activates rather than keep trying to attack they should repeat their last actions in life by rushing (well wading) to the door leading out and hammering their fists against it to try and break out.

I'm not 100% sure how the pressure differential works if you're trying to pull a door that opens inward into a room that is filled with water while there is ordinary air on the other side. I know (and has been proven countless times over) that you can not push a door open into water while you are in an area with air (see Mythbusters how you escape from a car that has been driven into water episode).

That said, I'm not a chemist/physicist and I likewise have no desire at all to try and replicate the circumstances from this particular situation, so if any of you know better and know that in theory Mirri should have been able to pull that door open and not need to focus on just bashing a hole in it, assume it had some sort of spell/mechanism set/built into it that is designed to keep it closed when the drowning room is filled with water.

Also, I felt this was "on point" even if I dislike the idea of traps that you can't avoid triggering (since they're more like "screw yous" at that point than traps) because it helped lay some groundwork for the stuff that was to come. James is clearly being driven by Maahes to do something that he normally would not, Mirri when push comes to shove will go to James' side to try and protect him even if means walking into what looks like a trap just waiting to happen, James' own protective feels for Mirri...

What's going to happen at the end of chapter ten has no/less punch if we don't spend some time proving just how strong the bond between James and Mirri is.

Speaking of chapter ten, lets speak of chapter ten!

More or less right of the bat we have a quick fight with the two smoke elementals, which I had a hard time righting a real fight around (because it's hard to make fighting smoke exciting/put much verity into it) and then after that a bit of a joke situation.

Does it make me a bad person that I find temporary muteness such an easy subject to design jokes around? It is worth pointing out that this room has side doors that our group did not explore, one of them taking the group to the chamber where Tiyet was originally mummified.

If you go in there you can find the "Soul Coffin" which is used to extract the elements of a person's Ba into various canopic thought jars where they reside as smokes of various different colors (that's the stuff Tiyet was inhaling in the last few chapters after leaving her sarcophagus). If you lay down inside of it you will end up loosing some of your memories and have to go to another nearby room where they are stored, smash the jar and breath in the mist in order to get them back.

That stuff is much more "on point" than the jermlaine since it has to do with mummification and how Tiyet came to be/why she's stronger each time she wakes up (canopic thought jars not functioning properly at first) but the Adventure Book suggests not a single trap based around tricking them into the thing, so the only way that it can happen is if they decide to willing lay down inside of the thing and close the lid. If you can find PCs stupid enough to do something like that... well more power to you I guess.

Beyond that we go to the feasting room. The crypt cats in this room are originally non-violent as depicted in the story and the gong when sounded does trigger a magical hunger in all who hear it if they fail a will save. Sure enough James fails his, but Mirri keeps him from doing anything stupid long enough to shake off the effects.

The catnip is indeed in another room and guarded by a bunch of ants.

There is also a shelf of cats in jars of preservation, two of them still alive, sixteen undead exactly as in the Adventure Book and as I previously mentioned, anyone who shows kindness to the two living cats should get a minor blessing from Bastet, though as I noted I'm not sure how that squares with gods not supposed to be able to do anything at all in Ravenloft.

The cat statue that you need to place the catnip in does have snakes inside of it, though granted the reason given for this is in the Adventure Book is the Staff of Set commanding/drawing snakes to the general area. So in our version of the story with the Staff of Bastet there really was no reason for there to be a snake/several snakes inside the statue.

I kept the snakes in however because it provided a chance for one last twist of the knife, one last sign of Mirri's dedication to James before, well you know...

I'm not sure if I wrote this scene properly. On the other hand I'm not sure if anyone could have written this scene properly. James is never going to betray Mirri, he's never going to intentionally do something that would hurt Mirri.

Maahes does what he does because he wants to personally explain to Tiyet's face why she is wrong, and give her a one last chance to recant her wicked ways, before destroying her if she fails to do so. He feels that he needs to do this personally/have a full drawn out conversation on the mater with Tiyet before doing it, and he can only do that if he goes with her.

Not that this isn't exactly the kind of behavior that should be forcing him to roll a Dark Powers Check for Minor Betrayal in regards to Mirri for the mental stress his actions cause her. Granted, Maahes and James are two different personalities and as we see at the end James doesn't clearly remember anything that happened, hence why "James Maahes Firecat" committing a DPC worthy act doesn't cause James Firecat to loose his "Innocence" (a in universe term for one who has never committed an act worthy of a Dark Powers Check) because while the Dark Powers, are jerks, even they have standards/limits.

Which brings us to chapter eleven. I think nobody would have needed much in the way of great skill to predict what this chapter was about.

Throughout these commentaries and the story themselves, and especially the side stories, I hope I've by now fairly well established that James is Mirri's main Morality Pet/Chain. Granted, it's more accurate to say that the entire group form a five link long morality chain, but James is the biggest strongest, most fundamental link in that chain. When he gets removed from the picture... the results are unsurprisingly less than pretty.

To the rest of the group (especially Florence's) credit, she manages to pull Mirri back with the "Fundamental Four Words" that we've seen used before, though it should be a big red flag that they get addressed to Mirri when previously they've only been uttered to darklords.

"You could just stop."

The power of those words lays in the fact that they are utterly and completely true in universe.

For all that Ravenloft does to grease the slide down into corruption, the demiplane itself is never the primary cause for someone's descent into evil, it may make it easy for people to be evil, it may make it "rewarding" in some ways for them to be evil, but neither Ravenloft nor the Dark Powers ever force anyone to be evil.

Mirri knows exactly what Florence is suggesting when she makes that suggestion and so she backs down, or at least redirects the anger she's feeling in a more productive direction. It's a good thing she does also considering that if she hadn't she probably would have gotten some manner of wooden object through the heart and not gotten it pulled back out unless the rest of the group had been able to get James back without her.

I did a quick thesaurus check for all the various synonyms for "anger" and if you hadn't noticed I had her go through them in alphabetical order.

The capstone is of course that she closes with her own version of that famous line from Ghostbusters "Lets show that prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!" with Kantora being the largest city in Nova Vassa I feel it tracks fairly well.

After that, the cat statue/figure works more or less exactly as described in the Adventure Book. It looks like a small statue, comes to life in the shape of a cute fluffy kitten, and puts a delayed action paralysis spell on the legs of anyone who it rubs up against.

As written it is probably not quite so delayed action that it doesn't strike until the group are in the middle of the next trap though, and the way I depicted that trap is also taken more or less directly from the Adventure Book.

I have to give them credit, as death traps go this one is inventive and you're unlikely to find another trap that revolves around killing the party via cardiac arrest by way of a cat's heartbeat.

Now, my memory for anything other than mindless trivia has never been my strongest suit (which is why I write a lot of these stories with the Adventure Book very close by) so I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I'm fairly sure that it was after reading this particular trap that I decided on having James/lycanthropes in general have heartbeat rates reflecting the nature of what kind of animal they can transform into.

All that said, the trap isn't anywhere near as deadly as it might look when you get down to the crunch. It takes 2d4+9 rounds for people to fall unconscious because of their cat heartbeats, and it takes one round to open any of the doors in the room. There are only nine possible doors, and opening the right one instantly undoes the spell, so even if they pick at random, even if they pick wrong intentionally, so long as they keep picking they'll be fine.

Florence being a dryad has a noticeably different sort of metabolism than the other living members of the group. Even I am not sure exactly how it works, and as far as I can tell there's never been a Van Richten Guide dealing with them (the closest they get is a few quick touches on the Sylvan Fey in the opening chapters of their book on the Shadow Fey) but I'm assuming she has at least a few photosynthetic options when it comes to her diet, she has something more like sap than blood, and in keeping with that particular "theme" much like how sap flows slower than blood, Florence's heart tends to beat less frequently than a human's would. This is why the trap hits her hardest.

Mirri is of course unaffected because you know, vampire, she gets as much out of her heart as most of us do from our appendix, it might have been useful once, but now it's just a liability that may end up turning against us at the wrong time. Likewise, she's immune to paralysis causing magic, which leaves her free to try and solve the "riddle" of this trap.

The trap works as like this, if you open a door showing a cat doing something active then there is just a solid wall behind it (much like that "fake-door" back near the start of this adventure) but if you open the door that has a cat relaxing on it, your own heart beats go back down to normal.

What Florence has to say to Mirri is actually a fairly reasonable approach to "life" that some druids (especially some Ravenloft druids) take. It is pretty common druidic practice to accept death as a part of life, Florence has just decided that undeath is an equally valid "conclusion" to or transition from life.

It typically is used to transform the food chain into the food circle, and if that sounds silly it's because it works like this.

Sunlight comes down and causes grass to grow.

The grass gets eaten by herbivores.

Herbivores who get eaten by carnivores.

Non-sentient carnivores get hunted down and eaten by demi-humans of one type or another.

Then the demi-humans get hunted by vampires, up until the point when the vampire ends up getting destroyed by... sunlight.

The sunlight causes them to burst into fire, and turn into ash, which is helps nurture the soil and allow new grass to grow.

The fact that Mirri is unaffected by the sunlight is neither here nor there, Florence is of the opinion that you need to have SOMETHING that preys upon demi-humanity, otherwise they grow out of control (see Nosos) and utterly ruin things for everything/everyone.

Now at the moment in most domains of Ravenloft the ratio of demi-humans to things that hunt demi-humans is skewed in the wrong direction (especially in Verbrek where the werewolves outnumber the actual humans) but she doesn't disprove of vampires/undead on principle any more than most druids disapprove of wolves. She just feels that at the moment in many places their population needs to be winnowed to prevent them from over hunting their prey.

Mirri helps accomplish that particular feat because she hunts other vampires. Conversation can make strange bedfellows after all, and never forget, nature is red in Tooth and Claw. Anyway, Florence gives Mirri magic and she (Mirri) moves to handle the rest of this adventure minus the other four.

The trap she runs into with the repeatedly teleporting hallway/door is straight from the Adventure Book, the only way to pass through it without being teleported is to walk through it on all fours. Granted Mirri could have done that just by getting down on her hands and feet, but that would make her look silly and even on her own she has too much pride to abase herself like that.

Well that, and she was hedging her bets that transforming into an actual cat of some kind or another would be a surefire way in order to get through it.

Then we get an exposition dump, that, well yeah is an exposition dump and its not even bound up in anything super "plot relevant" for a given definition of the term.

That definition being, how would the story proceed if we didn't have this particular scene?

Which in this case is "exactly the same."

In book two when we getting that exposition scene about Gregor Zolnik it also involved learning about his particular strengths and weaknesses allowing the group to defeat him the next time they did battle. Mirri learns nothing about Tiyet by reading that scroll that she puts to any real use while fighting her in the next chapter.

So on that level, I'll admit the scene is a bit of a failure.

On the other hand, this is Ravenloft, your villains aren't supposed to be two dimensional, so I feel the story reads stronger if you know how/why Tiyet went crazy/evil.

If nothing else, since we have no Staff of Set, without this part, we would never learn about Kematef and how Tiyet's first life ended. In particular it is a subtle bit of foreshadowing for what is about to happen... back in her first life, Tiyet died because she decided to take someone into her bed chambers who secretly hated her and planned to murder her.

In short... Tiyet is really bad at reading people/men and she makes the exact same mistake with James tat she made with Kematef, she is not good at telling when men who seem to be interested her are actually more interested in killing her.

This is also important because it helps paint how James and Tiyet are such opposites.

Sadly I failed to actually think this through properly and so did not include it at any point in the story (luckily there's always the "Remastered" version I post on the Fraternity of Shadows site) but let me explain.

Both Tiyet and James share PERFECTLY IDENTICAL DISFIGUREMENTS, a pair of puncture marks on the front of the neck, Tiyet's are a little bit less obvious (because her entire body is falling apart/decrepit) and I feel like a major league idiot for not mentioning this/properly drawing attention to the fact.

Both of them have the exact same markings... for exactly the opposite reasons.

Tiyet has those markings as result of being bitten there by Kematef when he injected the poison that killed her. They're the result of one single bite delivered against her will that completely ended her mortal life, they are a mark of how she was once betrayed by one she loved... (or at least "loved' as she would interpret it... we really don't get enough information how Kematef managed to seduce Tiyet into making love to him given that she intended to murder him for his crimes, I can only mark it down as a sign of her mental instability)

James on the other paw has those markings as a result of being bitten there night after night after night by Mirri, and even his lycanthropic constitution can't quite fully overcome such damage from a vampire's fangs. On James' neck, those bite marks are a symbol of his devotion to Mirri, how he is willing to preform sacrifices in the name of love.

James feels pride when he sees those marks, because they're proof that Mirri doesn't have to feed on someone she might be seriously hurting. Tiyet feels hatred when she sees those marks because they're proof of how she was once deceived, betrayed and murdered.

Also something that is mentioned in the Adventure Book but I never brought up in the story is this...

Tiyet's body was mixed with all kinds of stuff (to give her some immunities to stuff like insects, fire, and acid) but agents of Set also secretly mixed "dust of dryness" in there as well, causing her flesh to shrivel up and start to crack.

This is an interesting fact, but really has like no bearing on the adventure as written. In theory Tiyet was evidently supposedly to be a "Pristine" Mummy (see Father Milhouse back in the first book, Pristine Mummies look more alive than most people who actually alive) but because of the dust of dryness she ended up looking the way that most people imagine a mummy will look.

Make of that what you will, I couldn't do anything interesting with the information.

Also the passage that Mirri quotes about Kali, is an actual line from some translated Hindu texts. What is worth pointing out about it is what happens in the rest of the "story" in question.

"Once Kali had destroyed all the demons in battle, she began a terrific dance out of the sheer joy of victory. All the worlds or lokas began to tremble and sway under the impact of her dance. So, at the request of all the Gods, Shiva himself asked her to desist from this behavior. However, she was too intoxicated to listen. Hence, Shiva lay like a corpse among the slain demons in order to absorb the shock of the dance into himself. When Kali eventually stepped upon Shiva, she realized she was trampling and hurting her husband and bit her tongue in shame." – From _Hindu Gods & Goddesses_, Swami Harshananda, Ramakrishna Math, 1981, pages 116–117.

So, the reason I chose this particular passage is that it points out that even people /deities who are chaotic evil (Mirri/Kali) can still have those (James/Shiva) that they truly deeply care about/love, and will become ashamed/repentant if they realize the things they are doing are causing those they love harm.

It is a passage that points out that while Kali is CE she's not a caricature of some sort of cackling evil for evil's sake caricature that say, Lolth would be, who as far as I know has basically no redeeming features at all.

That said, once again, Kali is a real world deity that has an important place in the Hindu pantheon and I'm getting any of this wrong I'm very sorry please feel free to correct me.

Anyway, Mirri locates another hidden passage and is confronted with one last cat themed riddle/trap. This is actually an illusion, which she doesn't figure out, but that hardly matters since she at least figures out what the illusion wants to see, which is licking the hand, then brushing the hair with it/otherwise pantomime any sort of "cat grooming".

Thus it vanishes and the way is made clear for Tiyet and Mirri's confrontation.

I changed the way the magic protecting Tiyet's sarcophagus works, because in the Adventure Book as written the spells which cause anything that comes near it to catch on fire keep working even while she is "awake" but decided not to include that since it would slow things down.

Mirri would most likely just keep chucking stones at Tiyet till she came down to fight Mirri paw to paw, but not having the two do a lot more verbal sparing/let Mirri quickly bring the fight to Tiyet made for better reading hopefully.

Once again, I added the living cats, but I had a very good reason to.

That reason was I wanted to see a vampire deep strike a feline army into existence.

Well that, and also I wanted to subtly hint at the sort of perverse sort of karma that Ravenloft seems to run.

Now, very rarely does doing something good result in something good happening to you in Ravenloft, so instead think about this as something bad not happening to her because she refrained from doing something bad.

If you read the Van Richten Guide to vampires, it says that they're only allowed to use their ability to command animals once a day. Now, the third edition rules for vampires says that they're allowed to use the ability three times a day, but in this case I'm deferring to the Van Richten Guide and if that makes Mirri weaker than the standard vampire so much the better since she has plenty of other advantages.

Thus, the entire reason that Mirri is able to control the cats to fight for her is because she didn't use that ability to force Count and Countess to kill themselves. If she had used that ability then she would have been in a very nasty position.

Also another difference between Mirri and Tiyet that maybe I should have played up but couldn't figure out how to use properly is the difference between their respective feline forms. Mirri looks like a proper lioness, in point of fact due to fur covering her skin, Mirri looks "more alive" as a lioness than she does as a human.

By comparison, Tiyet can shape change into any kind of cat she wishes, but she remains every bit as clearly undead as she is in her human form, in short she looks like one of the Crypt Cats.

Mirri looks like she's still alive, and she lives in the world of the living, even if it is constantly preying upon them. Tiyet looks like she's dead, and she has next to no interest in the living other than killing them/forcing them to worship Bastet (through her of course). Her desires are entirely rooted in her past, and undeath have no changed them in the slightest.

So yeah, Mirri and Tiyet fight and they fight and they fight and they fight. Mirri is much better at physical combat, but Tiyet does still have magic and that heal spell does a real number on her.

Tiyet does not have Mirri's fast healing, but she can get hit points back by hitting herself with various "inflict" spells since those restore hit points to undead.

Mirri while lacking magic does has a few tricks for getting her own hit points back, at least so long as there are living beings about (once again remember, Mirri's fate is ever tied to the living) and she energy drains a lion to get back what she lost and a few extra things as well.

Then she fights Tiyet in a more defensive style (in particular her goal is to land disabling blows that will break Tiyet's arms/elbows) that D&D can't really replicate because if you start breaking down every possible move and counter move in a various different martial arts styles, then what you end up with either resembles A: the grappling rules, and the less said about them the better, or B: filing a tax return (if you launch a flying crane kick against someone using Bonetti's defense consult table 54-G if they've made their balance check, table 29-U if they haven't) so, yeah, make of that what you will.

Mirri's comment about having the love of James strikes very close to home because as we see in the next chapter, the reason Tiyet was in the process of being reborn was because James had just kicked her head in.

So Mirri defeats her, though that's the only the end of her 8th life and she still has one left.

Which brings us to the other "final" chapter.

So we get to see James having a conversation with Tiyet, and we establish one more key difference between them.

Tiyet sees herself as a High Priestess of Bastet, the most important representative of Bastet who is on the mortal plane.

James when he's just James, simply sees himself as a servant of Bastet, James Maahes Firecat, still sees himself as clearly subordinate to Bastet, he's her son, it's his job to enforce her will, not to interpret it.

So when the time comes, James unveils his grand view of human and feline interaction.

It really has been a successful partnership, and Ravenloft not being as technologically advanced as our world is (especially certain domains) that partnership is still quite important.

Some might have had their belief in the supremacy of the cat as a guardian of human civilization (because you can't have civilization if you can't store food) shaken by growing up in Richemulot where rats are the "Apex Scavenger" for lack of a better term, but not James. For one thing, he grew up in probably the one village where rats actually had been pretty much hunted to complete and utter extinction, granted that's only because Jacqueline Renier wants it to be that way, but James has no way of knowing that.

As far as he's concerned, the situation in Richemulot is just the result of cats temporarily being on the loosing end of an occult arms race. Common housecats simply can't defend against wererats, you need werecats to do that.

Tiyet however is too wedded to her own importance, her ego so massive that even though James lays out quite clearly why trying to improve the life of cats by killing off humans is a prospect doomed to fail from the start, she doesn't care.

At which point James Maahes Firecat has had all he can stands and can't stands no more.

Tiyet sadly isn't quite aware of the limits of her powers, she thinks the fact that any cat which tries to harm her will refuse to/go insane protects her from James (after all he hasn't actually hurt her in any up until now) and sadly for her, while it works on non-sentient cats, it has no effect on natural werecats.

That's why James has such an easy time defeating her, she wasn't prepared to defend herself.

The next time they meet she's much more focused on killing him/aware of how dangerous he can be, but he's ready for her and has the Staff of Bastet.

It's also worth pointing out something else about the mask/headdress for a moment.

There's a neat little trick to it that keeps the PCs from carting it off as a free anti-magic amulet to gain 10% magical resistance, or whatever that can be translated to in 3rd edition spell resistance.

Anyone who wears the thing and doesn't believe in Bastet suffers from a troublesome curse, like having their own spells fail 20% of the time.

I am keeping that rule exactly as written, but the only argument you could make that James Maahes Firecat doesn't "believe" in Bastet is to ask if you "believe" in your own mother.

That said, it's never very clear how Tiyet is still supposed to get the mask back after she uses it against the heroes for the first time during her fourth life and is killed. So I decided that it, like her spirit magically returns to the room where she is reborn, though when she's killed in this particular location it doesn't go anywhere, hence why it is still laying there for James to grab.

Anyway with the mask protecting James from Tiyet's magic (and the line he uses is a reference to the Caiaphas Cain novels, in particular it is referencing a line that titular character never actually says, but is attributed to him because it sounds better than what he actually said, which was a bit more self serving) he's able to stand up to the best she can throw out.

After that, we go directly to an even more obvious reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, if you've seen the movie you know what scene I'm talking about. That said, James should probably have used some form of Egyptian rather than his native Low Mordentish to chastise Tiyet in addition to the local Vassi, but I think you need more than google translate to get something approaching ancient Egyptian, and even then it probably would loose something if it isn't depicted in proper hieroglyphics, and I can't even figure out how to get that little accent mark over the "e" in French let alone how to type those!

So as Tiyet dies once again, she finally stays dead for the very simple reason that she's run out of lives.

If you don't believe me, lets count.

1rst life: Poisoned by Kematef.

2nd life: Sliced apart by Alex.

3rd life: Shot by Cal.

4th life: Frozen and shattered by Tristen.

5th life: Shocked by Devi.

6th life: Impaled by shards of magic wood by Florence.

7th life: Kicked in head by James.

8th life: Beaten to death by Mirri.

9th life: Bursts into flames thanks to the Staff of Bastet.

Thus why Tiyet finally stays dead.

So with Tiyet defeated, James finally back to his normal self, the story can start to wrap itself up.

Originally Mirri's grand moment of epiphany was a lot more like Moist Von Lipwig's near the end of Going Postal where he contemplates pushing aside his love interest and going back to doing things the way that they used to, which leads to them having their possible future flash before their lives. I'll include it here so you can judge how effective (or not) it is on your own.

" _She pushed James away and turned into a cloud of rolling mist heading for the roof. She floated away from him, from all of them, and went back to her old unlife, always moving on, always finding some new neck to feast from, but somehow it just didn't seem to work any more, the flare wasn't there, normal human blood was like watered down wine to a sot in her mouth, she needed more and more of it to get the same thrill. More and more corpses piled up in her wake, until one day her luck ran out and in some small time graveyard where she had stashed her coffin she found its lid being thrown back to back revealing the figure of Rudolph Van Richten, holy symbol in one hand, stake in the other..._

 _And a crimson angel tackled him to the ground saving her..._

 _Instantly she was right back where she had been, right back to staring into a pair of huge brown eyes. She couldn't see her reflection in them, but she could still so many other things..."_

After writing that out I decided that while Terry Pratchett references are all well and good, sometimes, especially for dramatic romantic moments like this, it is best to just do your own work/speak from the heart, even if I did frame the end result in terms that have to do with Ravenloft/Nova Vassa.

I was especially proud of "If she said it there was no going back, but if she didn't there was no going forward" since I'm fairly certain I came up with that one on my own.

Thus with a quick explanation for why Malken won't be able to try and rain on James and Mirri's parade (this time at least) we close out the story with proof that Tristen's plan didn't take him as fully by surprise as it might have, that or he made back up arrangements.

Either way, it also closes with another example of how James and Mirri are the same yet different in just the right way for opposites to attract, because James now has his holy/magical cat mask that he took from Tiyet, and Mirri has one that Malken made for her.

I know these novels have very loose continuity to them and I don't have the characters gaining new magical items, powers/abilities during the course of them most of the time, but don't be surprised if at some point in the future we see one of those masks again, and if we see James' it'll still be effective against Non-Bastet Magic.

So that wraps up everything dealing with what I wrote.

Guess I should talk about the Adventure Book on its own merits for a moment.

I do wish that they had done a little bit more research into the Egyptian Mythology (or a little less when naming "Tiyet" and once again that stuff with the Jermaine is completely unrelated to the general theme of proper cat related traps/obstacles and I'd highly suggest any DM running this adventure to most likely drop it, but other than that it is pretty good.

I still like this adventure if only because it is able to do something that just about no other Ravenloft Adventure Book does, it crafts a story that has nothing almost nothing at all to do with the domain's darklord, while still being true to the spirit of the domain.

I mean, in Hour of the Knife Sodo/Mr. S isn't the main foe you face, but he still sets the entire plot in motion by having his minions use a magical knife to grant him invincibility until one of them decides not to give it back, in The Awakening, Malken has nothing all to do with Tiyet, and at the start of the story knows as little about her as the heroes do.

It's also appropriate that this is the adventure/this the domain that finally does that, because it speaks to the character/nature of Nova Vassa. Malken may harness the sinfulness/wrong doing of others for his own ends, but he's by no means some sort of fountain of corruption from which everything that is wrong with Nova Vassa flows.

Everything that is wrong with Nova Vassa starts from the ground up, and Malken is simply the ultimate evolution/representation of that corruption. Nova Vassa is not a domain that could easily be set right, the most that can be hoped for is that at least our heroes kept the entire demi-human population from being murdered by cats under Tiyet's control.

Which is not a small thing, it is just that to fix Nova Vassa properly you'd need to, well you'd probably need to take over the entire nation and rebuilding it from the ground up, and you guys come here for adventure stories not tales of how to properly run governments so as to prevent corruption/oppression.

Normally now is around the time that I'd be telling you your three choices of what stories I'm going to write next, however in this case I'm going to take a page out of Othmar's book and be a bit of a tyrant, simply because the story I want to tell next flows nicely (geographically speaking) from the group's current location in Nova Vassa, and I also feel it flow from a narrative sense, since it's time for another Alexander and Florence story, and hopefully this one won't actually end up giving center stage to an NPC.

Of course before I post the first chapter of that, I'm going to post another side story. So look forward to that!

Oh also I should probably proof read this again before I post it... but ehh too tired, sorry my new commute takes a lot out of me and this thing is super long as you may have noticed...


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